SteveWoz's Profile

Apple is not becoming a monopoly. Apple has very much been a monopoly for a decade. A definition of why Microsoft is a monopoly was spelled out in the early pages of the 214 page 'Finding of Fact' in the DOJ/Microsoft suit. As I read it I realized that the definition applied just as well to Apple. This definition spelled out why market share need not be 100%. It involved the difficulties and costs that kept users from switching platforms. But most people think that monopoly is measured in terms of market share. This is also misunderstood, not in the case of Microsoft but in the case of Apple. People would say that a company with 5% market share for personal computers cannot be a monopoly. But in this case, Apple has 100% market share of the Microsoft platform, and for those of us using it, switching can be just as hard as for PC owners. When one walks into a store, they know that they are going to buy a PC or that they are going to buy a Macintosh. There's really no trading off features each time, as there is between different PC's. You are buying the OS. You don't want to learn a new one. You don't even want apps that are different. The illegal use of a monopoly is not how you use it to keep your customers. It's in how you use that monopoly strength to take over other related markets from innovative 3rd parties. Microsoft left no stone unturned in taking the browser market. Netscape had no chance in that one. There's nothing more any large company could have done than Microsoft did to turn the tables on Netscape, not by having a better browser but by forcing you to Ineternet Explorer if you had or purchased Windows. That's the nature of antitrust law. If you controlled 100% of the gas stations and announced that you were coming out with cars and also that you were modifying all gas stations to only work with your own cars, it would be an example of this as well. Fair competition is what fair business practice demands. In Apple's case, could they take over things related to the Macintosh OS? Things like music software for the Macintosh? Like photo software? We know that Apple has done a better job than any 3rd party ever did, and that we benefit greatly by having many integrated applications (not to menion the dot-mac service). So it's really touchy as to whether this sort of antitrust activity is good or bad. It's better to turn our heads the other way I think. At least as long as the Apple leadership is more interested in good products than the quick buck. This antitrust reasoning doesn't apply to the iPod/iTunes market, in my opinion, because Apple created and made a new working system and changed the world. Before Apple there was no legitimate market at all for online music, at least not one done in a way that we users would want. Apple hit on the formula of making the music player a satellite to your PC. They did it first and deserve to keep doing it.