carey_jim

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Just a quick comment on the Microsoft Word issue.

Microsoft used its virtual monopoly of PC operating systems, Windows, to get a monopoly of other, non-related systems such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

They did this by using several unfair advantages. For example, in the beginning, they included Microsoft Word for free with every copy of Windows and, in addition, they would not share vital information about their operating system to vendors of other word processors such as Word Perfect which was almost forced out of business.

This has actually been standard practice in American financial history, for example, with such companies and Standard Oil, etc.,etc. but most of them were broken up into smaller competitive businesses in the period just before World War I. The resulting system was called oligarchy capitalism. The previous one, monopoly capitalism.

That's why we call the present owners of American businesses oligarchs. Microsoft Corporation is a mastodon, just as IBM was a generation ago, in that it is a virtual monopoly in PC operating systems. In an age of virtual regulators, that isn't surprising. Obama is now kicking up a lot of political dust now, and breaking up Microsoft is probably part of a plan.