[GDC7]

> And consumers were harmed by one company controlling 97% of the desktop market

When the 97% is potentially all free, then I don't where's the monopoly, unless you also include in the definition of monopoly having a special place in people's hearts after you gave them such gift.

People made a choice to pay for convenience, but if you looked around you'd find ways to get Microsoft products for free.

[MBCook]

But it’s NOT free. You keep repeating that, but I’m not sure why.

Are you saying that because people didn’t have to buy Windows for their computers since it was included?

They paid in directly. You’d buy your computer for $2000 and Microsoft would get $350 (or whatever). Because of the price Microsoft charged, the price of your computer with artificially high. Because of Microsoft agreements with computer makers, you couldn’t choose NOT to buy Windows. So you had to pay the money. Since you had to buy Windows, there was no price competition.

Even after the antitrust settlement this was still a problem. Remember when netbooks were the fad? Well it’s really hard to sell a $500 laptop that’s good if you’re required to pay Microsoft $250 for Windows. That’s why we actually saw ones that shipped with Lenox. In competition, Microsoft released a cut down version of Windows that was limited that they charged less for.

What do you know, competition worked. That couldn’t happen before the settlement.