Microsoft is officially a monopoly… in Russia at least
Many people, including the authorities in charge of overseeing these kinds of things, consider Microsoft to be a monopoly. But in Russia, it’s official: Microsoft IS a monopoly.
Microsoft has, for much of its life, been in an unenviable position of controlling a large portion of certain sectors, most notably computer operating systems via its Windows platform and Internet browsers via Internet Explorer.
These markets have considerably opened up in recent years. The emergence of Apple as a serious hardware manufacturer has helped give Microsoft some competition in the OS sector. Which is exactly why Microsoft has now gone on the offensive with its new ‘Laptop Hunters’ advertising campaign. The open source genius of Linux is also making small but significant inroads into Microsoft’s market share.
Internet Explorer may well still be the most-popular Web browser around but it’s losing market share on a monthly basis. Firefox is gaining fans all the time, while Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome are also eating away at the popularity of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Despite these movements in the market suggesting Microsoft is now less of a monopoly than it ever has been before, the company has been investigated by the U.S., the E.U., Japan, and Korea. And now it’s set for further problems from a quite unlikely source: Russia.
According to Profy, Russian authorities are set to officially label Microsoft as a monopoly. The country keeps an official register of monopolies, and Microsoft is about to be the first technology company to be added to the list. An investigation will take place, in which it will be discovered whether or not Microsoft is monopolizing the market. If this is found to be the case the Microsoft activities could be curtailed in order to stop it from abusing its domination of the market.
In order to be investigated for being a monopoly in Russia, a company must have a 35 percent or greater market share. Which makes me wonder why it has avoided any trouble up to this point. The Russian government indicates it has just begun a study into the PC sector, and a look at how Microsoft operates is clearly on the agenda.
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April 6th, 2009
Russia now has open source mandates for a schools in all regions. And this means that all schools must use open source software…or pay for it themselves out their own pocket.
If Microsoft is a monopoly in the schools…it won’t be for much longer….
April 7th, 2009
Maybe Russia could use it’s gas monopoly and shove a gas pipeline directly into steve jobs’s asshole.