Microsoft Hatred FAQ 5188

Paul Rubin

How would it have been contradictory to the facts at hand to find that OSX competes with Windows?

That's not what happened. With OSX, for example, the court decided that OSX didn't compete with Windows and therefore the market share of OSX was not even relevent. OSX could have sold twice as many units as Windows and under the court's reasoning, Microsoft would still have been a monopoly.

That's basically slander.

Suppose hypothetically an issue of fact in a case is razor thin, as close as it can possibly be. The trial court judge says, "This is as close as something can possibly be. A decision of X is basically just as well supported as Y. Nevertheless, I will find X". (buttume the court must find X or Y and they are contradictory.) The appeals court says that either X or Y would be a reasonable finding for the trial court to make since they were essentially equally supported, so the decision is upheld. Does this make X an "established legal fact" in your mind?

The trial court had several possible decisions about what the scope of the market was to be for purposes of determining what share of the market Microsoft had. Obviously, "software" was too large a scope and would result in the conclusion that Microsoft has some miniscule percentage of the market. "Operating systems that can run WIN32 software natively" was too small a scope, and would result in the conclusion that Microsoft had basically 100% of the market. However, the choice of the place in-between was critical.

In fact, by the court's definition of the market, Apple is a monopolist with OSX. And what are Apple's rules for obtaining OSX wholesale?

DS