4 ms·

And in retrospect, it would have been a mistake to break up Microsoft. No one is advocating breaking them up today. And that happened just through market forces

• chc 8y ago
  There was absolutely intervention from multiple governments, and it scared Microsoft so much that they changed their company culture to studiously avoid even the appearance of monopolism — because they knew that if they ever got brought to court again, the break-up would almost certainly happen. If it had really been left just to market forces and time, Apple might have gone under (Microsoft actually propped them up when they were struggling in order to keep up the facade of competition), and Microsoft would have brought their might to bear against all the competitors that have risen up since then instead of being the gentle giant we have known for the past couple of decades.