by Kevin Coates | Oct 27, 2009 | Antitrust, Apple, Microsoft
Scoble has a great piece on why he thinks Apple’s iPhone isn’t going to be pushed aside anytime soon: 85,000 reasons why Apple’s iPhone isn’t going to be disrupted. The availability of large numbers of applications valued by users is one of the arguments that was used to support the finding that Microsoft had market power in the US and EU antitrust cases. In the US, the District Court’s findings of fact discusses the applications barrier to entry starting at para. 37: Consumer interest in a PC operating system derives primarily from the ability of that system to run applications. The consumer wants an operating system that runs not only types of applications that he knows he will want to use, but also those types in which he might develop an interest later. Also, the consumer knows that if he chooses an operating system with enough demand to support multiple applications in each product category, he will be less likely to find himself straitened later by having to use an application whose features disappoint him. Finally, the average user knows that, generally speaking, applications improve through successive versions. He thus wants an operating system for which successive generations of his favorite applications will be released — promptly at that. The fact that a vastly larger number of applications are written for Windows than for other PC operating systems attracts consumers to Windows, because it reassures them that their interests will be met as long as they use Microsoft’s product. For the EU, see the confirmation in the CFI’s Microsoft judgment of September 2007 (at para. 1088) upholding the Commission 2004 Microsoft...
by Kevin Coates | Sep 29, 2009 | Antitrust, Google
The DOJ and FTC have filed a joint statement of interest in respect of the proposed Google Books settlement. It’s noteworthy for a couple of things. First, they agreed a joint response. Given relations between the FTC and DOJ in recent years, that’s already an achievement. I met Tom Barnett’s chief of staff for an informal chat last September, and he said that even if there were a change in administration, he did not anticipate a fundamental change in enforcement policy, given that the DOJ staff largely agreed with the then enforcement policy. In light of the comments from Christine Varney and Jon Leibowitz in recent months – repeated again at Fordham last week – and in light of the joint filing in Google Books, it looks as though the chief of staff’s views were more optimistic than realistic. Second, the filing gives strong support in its opening paragraphs to the service that Google is trying to create – albeit balanced with an extensive analysis of the legal shortcomings of the proposal as it currently stands: The Proposed Settlement has the potential to breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits to the public. By allowing users to search the text of millions of books at no cost, the Proposed Settlement would open the door to new research opportunities. Users with print disabilities would also benefit from the accessibility elements of the Proposed Settlement, and, if the Proposed Settlement were approved, full text access to tens of millions of books would be provided through institutional subscriptions. Finally, the creation of an independent, transparently-operated Book Rights...