While I think this should be legal, the suits against Microsoft were akin to suing Toyota for refusing to sell a car with a Ford transmission....or with no transmission (allowing the owner to install their own).
Microsoft may not themselves be innovators, but they establish a standard that allows innovations to reach a wide market.
Hmmmm... that's why Apple provided Microsoft with the Mac OS codes to develop Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, etc. (which were developed for and released first on the Mac). That's why Apple's ran Adobe software, so they could write all the software. I don't think you know what you are talking about.
While I think this should be legal, the suits against Microsoft were akin to suing Toyota for refusing to sell a car with a Ford transmission....or with no transmission (allowing the owner to install their own).
No, the anti-trust suits against Microsoft had to do with MS using its Operating System monopoly position for the benefit of its non-OS products such as Internet Explorer over Netscape, Word over Wordperfect, etc. MS threatened retailers and computer manufacturers with not supplying them with Windows if they included competitors products with their computers. Microsoft lost.
Microsoft may not themselves be innovators, but they establish a standard that allows innovations to reach a wide market.
I think if it had been left up to Microsoft, there would be very little innovation. Their method of innovation was, shall we say, unique. I know of at least two cases where Microsoft STOLE software from competitors and used it in their competing products: Disk Doubler/Disk Stacker and MS using code from Apple's Quicktime in their original Windows Media Player. The copyright and patent infringement suit settlement on that last one cost MS $150 Million and they agreed to give Apple FREE licenses to some of their patents in perpetuity while still having to license patents and copyrights from Apple for cash. There are more examples, but these are the most well documented.
Wrong metaphor. Imagine if Toyota had such a stranglehold on the market that no car dealer could turn a profit if it didn’t sell Toyotas.
Now some other car manufacturer wants to have his cars sold at dealers, but it turns out Toyota told the dealers “If you sell any other brand we’ll jack up your price for the cars, killing your profit.”
Even worse, imagine Toyota said “You have to sell Toyotas. Even if you sell a Ford to a customer, you have to pay us for a Toyota.”
The latter one is what killed OS/2. However, you really have to call Microsoft a former monopolist because Microsoft has been prohibited from doing either of those things for years.