A Critical Review“The Microsoft Monopoly: The facts, the law and the remedy”
The first weakness is that authors use too much reliance on other scholars’ opinions. By statistics, authors use Judge Jackson’s opinions more than twenty times and they have not used anyone else’s opinion even once. Jackson, who was the Judge in charge of the Microsoft anti-trust case but had been rejected by the US government duo to he had bias opinions to Microsoft. As a result, it will make their viewpoints questionable and lead their article not convincing enough.
The second negative characteristic is that authors have a bias against Microsoft. In the article authors describe Microsoft as a big monster, times and times repeat the negative effects of Microsoft monopoly, but they never mentioned the positive side of it. In fact, Microsoft has brought us not only good products, but also the standardization and the compatibility. “Technology needs leaders to define a market so that others can invest.” (Dick Satran 2000) Choosing the operating system which is the market leader makes it cause your data and programs compatible with other users. For example, consumers using Windows will never worried about the “Word” files in their computers can not be read in others computers. Another benefit is that a larger installed base means there will be many more application programs available for that system. Authors have not mentioned these facts in their article; obviously, they have a bias opinion to Microsoft.
The final negative characteristic in this article is lack of evidences. In their article, authors assert that, compare with AT&T, Microsoft is much easier to separate, because the employees work for Microsoft is mostly young, mobile and well-off (see “The Remedy” part). In fact, there is no evidence or statistic shows the employees in Microsoft are younger, more mobile or more well-off than the employees in AT&T. In addition, we can not find the relationship between the employees structure and how easy the company be divided. It will confuse the readers if authors do not explain this point.
In conclusion, as can be seen, this article is interesting, thought-provoking and well-organized. However, despite these positive characteristics, authors use too much reliance on other scholars’ opinion, have bias against Microsoft and do not provide enough evidences in support of their some viewpoints. It is recommended that more research is needed before definite conclusion. In particular, authors should do their research in a more careful and responsible manner, analyze things in a objective and fair way, especially do not have a bias opinion in their article. □
REFERENCE
Dick Satran (2000)
“Life after Microsoft-Do 20th-century laws work in the 21st-century economy?” UTS Library Database
Available at: http://web6.infotrac.galegro.../purl=rc1_CDB_0_A64732165&dyn=13!ar_fmt?sw_aep=ut
Accessed: 09.08.2002
Jeffrey A. Eisenach and Thomas M. Lenard, (2000).
“THE MICROSOFT MONOPOLY: THE FACTS, THE LAW AND THE REMEDY”
Available at:
http://www.pff.org/pop_7.4.htm
Accessed: 23.09.2002