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The EU fined Microsoft six hundred million dollars just for including Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player in Windows by default. Apple's behavior is much

The EU fined Microsoft six hundred million dollars just for including Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player in Windows by default. Apple's behavior is much worse than that.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Apple does not have a monopoly in the mobile phone market like Microsoft had in the operating system market. Microsoft also had a court order to comply with that they forgot about in Windows 7. https://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commission-fine/ https://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commi...
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Microsoft never had a monopoly in the OS market. Plenty of businesses large and small used competing OSs like Apple, Unix, Linux, Beos, OS/2, DOS, etc. Microsoft had a dominant market position, and anti-competitively leveraged that market position in operating systems to muscle its way into the internet browser market.
  - greedo 7y ago
    Windows had 97% marketshare. MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, DOS, the various *nixes and Linux were NOTHING in that market.
jakear 7y ago
IMO, that fine is (for lack of a better term) bullshit. Does Android present a browser selection to EU customers?
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  No, but there are at least three running or finished antitrust cases going against Google from the EU, for Google Shopping, AdSense and Android; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google for a summary.
coldtea 7y ago
How many times this old wives tale will have to be repeated till people understand what went on then, and how it's nothing like it's now? Microsoft then had a monopoly on desktop OSes at the time, at 95+ (close to 97%, in fact). Apple has a paltry sub-50% share of mobile OSes. The "But they have 100% share on their own products" is not an argument, as far as the law is concerned, as monopolies are not judged this way. That's the same reason why you can't legally force McDonalds to also sell Burger King burgers, or GAP to sell Banana Republic clothes... And even MS monopoly position wasn't the issue (having a monopoly naturally is not illegal). The issue was it used its monopoly position to threaten and bribe OEMs to not work with competitors.
- m_ke 7y ago
  iOS revenue is 2x larger than android. There might be more cheap android phones out there but Apple has the majority of high income individuals.
  - vgetr 7y ago
    So...?
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Which is not relevant. Monopoly is defined on a market, not on income segments (and even if it mattered, still on the high income individuals iOS is hardly above say 70%). Someone could sell cars for $5K and have 99% of the car market in a small city of 1000 people, while another one sells a single car for 100M and has 20 times the other's revenue. It's still the cheap car guy that has the monopoly.
    - m_ke 7y ago
      Revenue based market share is more relevant than unit market share for most businesses. Apple pulls in 2/3 of the revenue in the mobile app ecosystem and gets to act as a gatekeeper between most consumer startups and their potential customers.

The EU fined Microsoft six hundred million dollars just for including Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player in Windows by default. Apple's behavior is much worse than that.

ceejayoz 7y ago

Apple does not have a monopoly in the mobile phone market like Microsoft had in the operating system market. Microsoft also had a court order to comply with that they forgot about in Windows 7. https://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commission-fine/ https://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/microsoft-european-commi...

gamblor956 7y ago
Microsoft never had a monopoly in the OS market. Plenty of businesses large and small used competing OSs like Apple, Unix, Linux, Beos, OS/2, DOS, etc. Microsoft had a dominant market position, and anti-competitively leveraged that market position in operating systems to muscle its way into the internet browser market.
- greedo 7y ago
  Windows had 97% marketshare. MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, DOS, the various *nixes and Linux were NOTHING in that market.

jakear 7y ago

IMO, that fine is (for lack of a better term) bullshit. Does Android present a browser selection to EU customers?

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
No, but there are at least three running or finished antitrust cases going against Google from the EU, for Google Shopping, AdSense and Android; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google for a summary.

coldtea 7y ago

How many times this old wives tale will have to be repeated till people understand what went on then, and how it's nothing like it's now? Microsoft then had a monopoly on desktop OSes at the time, at 95+ (close to 97%, in fact). Apple has a paltry sub-50% share of mobile OSes. The "But they have 100% share on their own products" is not an argument, as far as the law is concerned, as monopolies are not judged this way. That's the same reason why you can't legally force McDonalds to also sell Burger King burgers, or GAP to sell Banana Republic clothes... And even MS monopoly position wasn't the issue (having a monopoly naturally is not illegal). The issue was it used its monopoly position to threaten and bribe OEMs to not work with competitors.

m_ke 7y ago
iOS revenue is 2x larger than android. There might be more cheap android phones out there but Apple has the majority of high income individuals.
- vgetr 7y ago
  So...?
- coldtea 7y ago
  Which is not relevant. Monopoly is defined on a market, not on income segments (and even if it mattered, still on the high income individuals iOS is hardly above say 70%). Someone could sell cars for $5K and have 99% of the car market in a small city of 1000 people, while another one sells a single car for 100M and has 20 times the other's revenue. It's still the cheap car guy that has the monopoly.
  - m_ke 7y ago
    Revenue based market share is more relevant than unit market share for most businesses. Apple pulls in 2/3 of the revenue in the mobile app ecosystem and gets to act as a gatekeeper between most consumer startups and their potential customers.