Microsoft Good or Bad
Since 1990, a battle has raged in United States courts between the United States government and the Microsoft Corporation headed by Bill Gates. ... The federal government maintains that Microsofts monopolistic practices are harmful to United States citizens, creating higher prices and potentially downgrading software quality, and should therefore be stopped, while Microsoft and its supporters claim that they are not breaking any laws, and are just doing good business. The only thing Microsoft is guilty of is taking advantage of free enterprise. ... (Check 1) The case was finally ended on July 15, 1994, with Microsoft signing a consent settlement. ... Until now, Microsoft would sell MS-DOS and Microsofts other operating systems to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) at a 60% discount if that OEM agreed to pay a royalty to Microsoft for every single computer that they sold regardless if it had a Microsoft operating system installed on it or not. After the settlement, Microsoft would be forced to sell their operating systems according to the number of computers shipped with a Microsoft operating system installed, and not for computers that ran other operating systems. (Check 2) Another practice that the Justice Department accused Microsoft of was that Microsoft would specify a minimum number of operating systems that the retailer had to buy. This eliminated any chance for another operating system vendor to get their system installed until the retailer had installed all of the Microsoft operating systems that it had installed. (Maldoom 2) In addition to specifying a minimum number of operating systems that a vendor had to buy, Microsoft also would sign contracts with the vendors for long periods of time such as two or three years. ... With Microsoft signing long-term contracts, they eliminated the chance for a new operating system to gain the popularity needed, quickly.