Microsoft to Open Stores, Hires Retail Hand

wsjtech ^ | 2-13-2009 | Nick Wingfield

[Fresh Wind]

Apple has not been convicted for being a monopoly using anti-competitive practices against competitors.

True. That doesn't mean the Microsoft conviction was right. And if Apple held 85% of the market, the same thing would have happened to them. That wouldn't have been right either.

Apple has the RIGHT to define how its copyrighted and patented intellectual property is used. That's protected in the Constitution.

Also true. So does Microsoft.

So what you're saying is that a little monopoly is OK and a Big Monopoly is bad.

I understand now.

[Swordmaker]

I understand now.

Obviously you don't.

Monopolies are not per se good or bad... it's how you got them and what you do with them that make that determination.

Microsoft used its operating system market dominating monopoly position, gained by market forces, to require, under threat of economic boycott, that third-party resellers of their operating systems NOT include fourth-party non-OS related software that competed with Microsoft's other software, such as their word processor and browser. That is anti-competitive, coercive, and illegal. That has been adjudicated by several courts and Microsoft has lost every time. It is now being tested again in Europe.

Apple is using its copyrights and patents, which are constitutional, time limited legal monopolies, granted by Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution allowing creators to benefit from creative work they have done, to control their intellectual property's sale and how it is used. What Apple is exercising is not an economic monopoly such as the one mis-used by Microsoft. Apple's use of their limited, legal monopoly is permissible, morally and legally; the other, Microsoft's use of their also legal monopoly, is impermissible, immoral and illegal.