4 ms·

Didn't Microsoft lose a lawsuit for something similar?

taf2 10y ago
Yes but they controlled a majority of the market so it was a monopoly- unfortunately in this case apple does not have control
- bad_user 10y ago
  This argument is often repeated, but I think it's a matter of perspective. Were all servers, mainframes and dumb terminals counted too? Back in the nineties I'm sure those counted for something compared with PCs. Apple has a complete monopoly on the iPhone / iPad market and that market is bigger than Microsoft's market in the 90s. You cannot change the OS without changing the hardware. You cannot change the browser without changing the OS. PCs and Windows never had such restrictions. So what's the difference? If you answer that the PC was an open standard whereas the iPhone is Apple's own toy, I personally don't think that's fair, given that Microsoft too has built the PC market ;-)
  - GuiA 10y ago
    > Apple has a complete monopoly on the iPhone / iPad market ?!? Of course they do, just like Nintendo has a monopoly on the 3DS market, and Porsche has a monopoly on the 911 market, but that's just tautological. If you meant "Apple has a complete monopoly on the smartphone/tablet market" then a 3 second Google search will show you that this is completely false.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - threeseed 10y ago
    Your argument is illogical when you think about it. Microsoft dominated the Personal Computing market. Apple is dominating the iOS market which is a subset of the Mobile Device market. I can buy a mobile device and experience the social and personal benefits from dozens of players. And bringing it back to the point at hand. The reason Microsoft got in trouble is not because they had a monopoly. But because they used that monopoly to unfairly attempt to create another monopoly when a new competitor came into the market. Safari always shipped with iOS. There was never any competition to begin with.
- tracker1 10y ago
  There is more than one form of monopoly... horizontal (a single resource controlled by one entity) and vertical (a single entity renders significant control through an entire vertical. Now, it can be argued that Apple has enough of a vertical stranglehold that anti-trust rules can apply. It doesn't have to be an absolute monopoly to violate anti-trust law.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Yeah, people get overly hung up on the monopoly term. Back when antitrust was formed, it was aimed at trust busting. Meaning that several big names of a market would come together and decide how the market would operate, rather than compete. And i do believe Apple has gotten a slap or two on the wrist for abusing their hold on content distribution. Ebook pricing for instance.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  More that MS was using their marketshare in operating systems to get the upper hand on the competition in a related area (not sure if that area was web browsers or web servers though, as the whole intranet thing was going on back then). Now if Apple made it real hard to play any content from ITMS outside of Apple products, that may be cause for concern. And they did get slapped on the wrist about ebook pricing.
millstone 10y ago
There's two cases that may be relevant: the US case and the EU case. The US's case against Microsoft was that they leveraged a monopoly in one field (OSes) to gain market share in another (web browsers) through unfair licensing terms. Those terms were forcing OEMs like Dell to bundle IE and place it on the home screen. I think the US case actually paints Google, not Apple, in a bad light. Apple does not license its software to OEMs, so there's no license terms that can be unfair. Indeed, if the point of the case is "OEMs should have more freedom and flexibility" - well, Apple IS the OEM. But Google does license to OEMs under very strict terms. For example, if I am an OEM and I want to ship Google Maps or the Play Store, I must include all the apps Google asks me to, I must make Google the default search engine for everything, I must tell Google how many devices I sell, I can't sell any other devices with custom Android, etc. This is well beyond what Microsoft did, and is the basis of one of the EU's cases against Google. The EU case against Microsoft is a little close to Apple, but only a little. Microsoft was accused of creating "disincentives for OEMs to ship third party streaming media players, and harms competition in the market for streaming media players." The concern there was that content providers would be forced to use Microsoft's proprietary media formats. The analogy to Apple would be very strong if Mobile Safari had lots of proprietary features, like ActiveX. But instead Apple has gone the other way, e.g. by not including Flash. It does not appear that Apple is making a play to control the web through proprietary standards.
MBCook 10y ago
Don't forget in the US that they basically dumped IE (in the economic sense) on the market where Netscape Navigator still cost money and had no possible way of competing for free. Also at the time web browsers were still relatively new. Today basically every device and operating system comes with one, it's expected. No one ever complained that Microsoft with shipping calculator or solitaire. To whatever degree there might be a case against Apple (which I don't really see) there are some pretty significant differences from the Microsoft case 20 years ago.

taf2 10y ago

Yes but they controlled a majority of the market so it was a monopoly- unfortunately in this case apple does not have control

bad_user 10y ago
This argument is often repeated, but I think it's a matter of perspective. Were all servers, mainframes and dumb terminals counted too? Back in the nineties I'm sure those counted for something compared with PCs. Apple has a complete monopoly on the iPhone / iPad market and that market is bigger than Microsoft's market in the 90s. You cannot change the OS without changing the hardware. You cannot change the browser without changing the OS. PCs and Windows never had such restrictions. So what's the difference? If you answer that the PC was an open standard whereas the iPhone is Apple's own toy, I personally don't think that's fair, given that Microsoft too has built the PC market ;-)
- GuiA 10y ago
  > Apple has a complete monopoly on the iPhone / iPad market ?!? Of course they do, just like Nintendo has a monopoly on the 3DS market, and Porsche has a monopoly on the 911 market, but that's just tautological. If you meant "Apple has a complete monopoly on the smartphone/tablet market" then a 3 second Google search will show you that this is completely false.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- threeseed 10y ago
  Your argument is illogical when you think about it. Microsoft dominated the Personal Computing market. Apple is dominating the iOS market which is a subset of the Mobile Device market. I can buy a mobile device and experience the social and personal benefits from dozens of players. And bringing it back to the point at hand. The reason Microsoft got in trouble is not because they had a monopoly. But because they used that monopoly to unfairly attempt to create another monopoly when a new competitor came into the market. Safari always shipped with iOS. There was never any competition to begin with.
tracker1 10y ago
There is more than one form of monopoly... horizontal (a single resource controlled by one entity) and vertical (a single entity renders significant control through an entire vertical. Now, it can be argued that Apple has enough of a vertical stranglehold that anti-trust rules can apply. It doesn't have to be an absolute monopoly to violate anti-trust law.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Yeah, people get overly hung up on the monopoly term. Back when antitrust was formed, it was aimed at trust busting. Meaning that several big names of a market would come together and decide how the market would operate, rather than compete. And i do believe Apple has gotten a slap or two on the wrist for abusing their hold on content distribution. Ebook pricing for instance.
digi_owl 10y ago
More that MS was using their marketshare in operating systems to get the upper hand on the competition in a related area (not sure if that area was web browsers or web servers though, as the whole intranet thing was going on back then). Now if Apple made it real hard to play any content from ITMS outside of Apple products, that may be cause for concern. And they did get slapped on the wrist about ebook pricing.

millstone 10y ago

There's two cases that may be relevant: the US case and the EU case. The US's case against Microsoft was that they leveraged a monopoly in one field (OSes) to gain market share in another (web browsers) through unfair licensing terms. Those terms were forcing OEMs like Dell to bundle IE and place it on the home screen. I think the US case actually paints Google, not Apple, in a bad light. Apple does not license its software to OEMs, so there's no license terms that can be unfair. Indeed, if the point of the case is "OEMs should have more freedom and flexibility" - well, Apple IS the OEM. But Google does license to OEMs under very strict terms. For example, if I am an OEM and I want to ship Google Maps or the Play Store, I must include all the apps Google asks me to, I must make Google the default search engine for everything, I must tell Google how many devices I sell, I can't sell any other devices with custom Android, etc. This is well beyond what Microsoft did, and is the basis of one of the EU's cases against Google. The EU case against Microsoft is a little close to Apple, but only a little. Microsoft was accused of creating "disincentives for OEMs to ship third party streaming media players, and harms competition in the market for streaming media players." The concern there was that content providers would be forced to use Microsoft's proprietary media formats. The analogy to Apple would be very strong if Mobile Safari had lots of proprietary features, like ActiveX. But instead Apple has gone the other way, e.g. by not including Flash. It does not appear that Apple is making a play to control the web through proprietary standards.

MBCook 10y ago

Don't forget in the US that they basically dumped IE (in the economic sense) on the market where Netscape Navigator still cost money and had no possible way of competing for free. Also at the time web browsers were still relatively new. Today basically every device and operating system comes with one, it's expected. No one ever complained that Microsoft with shipping calculator or solitaire. To whatever degree there might be a case against Apple (which I don't really see) there are some pretty significant differences from the Microsoft case 20 years ago.