Microsoft Judgement Expires May 12

As a result of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s efforts in the Microsoft case and final judgment, the competitive landscape changed allowing the marketplace to operate in a fair and open manner bringing about increased innovation and more choices for consumers. The final judgment also prevented Microsoft from continuing to engage in exclusionary behavior that was harmful to American businesses and consumers.

The Microsoft final judgment, which has been in effect since 2002, was designed to eliminate Microsoft’s illegal practices, to prevent recurrence of the same or similar practices and to restore the potential for competition from software products known as “middleware.” To that end, the judgment protected the development and distribution of middleware – including web browsers, media players and instant messaging software – thereby increasing choices available to consumers.
The final judgment proved effective in protecting the development and distribution of middleware products and prevented Microsoft from continuing the type of exclusionary behavior that led to the original lawsuit. Microsoft no longer dominates the computer industry as it did when the complaint was filed in 1998. Nearly every desktop middleware market, from web browsers to media players to instant messaging software, is more competitive today than it was when the final judgment was entered. In addition, the final judgment helped create competitive conditions that enabled new kinds of products, such as cloud computing services and mobile devices, to develop as potential platform threats to the Windows desktop operating system.

Since the entry of the final judgment, there have been a number of developments in the competitive landscape relating to middleware and to personal computer (PC) operating systems generally that suggest that the final judgment accomplished its goal of fostering competitive conditions among middleware products, unimpeded by anticompetitive exclusionary obstacles erected by Microsoft.