Apple Passes Microsoft to Become Second-Largest U.S. Company by Market Capitalization

[matticus008]

Sorry, but music is music. CDs are digital too. WTF is the difference whether you get the bits "online" or through a brick and mortar store? Essentially, NONE.

No, CDs and digital downloads are not fungible. They are separate markets within the greater industry.

Just like the consumer computer market is separate market from workstations and servers, which is a separate market from tablets/MIDs, which is a separate market from dumb terminals.

No one has stopped anyone else from offering digital music online either (even the EXACT same format and rates if they want), so there is no case.

Which is exactly why the DOJ inquiry isn't going anywhere. iTunes doesn't force exclusive dealing and the MFP provision is there to prevent, not cause, price discrimination.

Asking for an inquiry doesn't mean there's an investigation, an investigation doesn't mean there will be a finding of possible abuse, such a finding doesn't mean there will be a lawsuit, and a lawsuit doesn't mean there's been any wrongdoing until such a finding is issued as a final judgment. The inquiry is the first of about nine steps in the administrative review process, which almost always ends long before ever getting close to a court.

If competitors know they have a strong case, they go straight to court and sue. Going the administrative route is a showing that they don't have a case yet and are hoping the DOJ finds something for them to cling to.

It's "bad" if Apple sells too much music for the industry

No, it's not. It's bad if Apple sells too much and then uses that power to abuse competitors.

but it's good if the consumer has NO CHOICES for hardware and has to pay inflated hardware prices because no one else is allowed to compete with OSX hardware.

You are vacillating wildly back and forth with contradictory arguments.

Your claim is that Apple is restraining trade in the market for x86 consumer hardware operating systems. That requires that Apple be in the x86 consumer hardware market, or else there are no competitors to be restrained.

So either Apple has hardware competitors or they don't. If they don't, there's no trade to restrain. You can't have it both ways like you're trying to do.

Regardless, hardware competitors don't have a right to the software of their competitors. Once again, Microsoft's business model does not set the rules for everyone else. Palm's webOS is unique to Palm. Tivo's DVR software is unique to Tivo (and their brand licensees). Ford's Sync software platform is unique to Ford. HP-UX requires an HP server.

What I do know is that Apple didn't get to be #2 ahead of Microsoft by selling 9% of the world's operating system sales compared to Microsoft's 90% .

And Microsoft gets 80% of its revenue from source other than Windows and is still the higher-grossing company by several billion dollars, so the comparison is, as ever, meaningless.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

No, CDs and digital downloads are not fungible. They are separate markets within the greater industry.

You are unbelievable. You expect me to believe that you will call two different distribution methods of the same exact media "separate markets" and yet people like you will not admit that hardware and software are separate markets. I hear BS nonsense about Apple's hardware being linked inseparably from the hardware and that's what makes it a "Mac", even though the underlying hardware is pretty much exactly the same as any PC out there since the switch to Intel. Apparently, what is and what is not a market depends completely on a person's opinion....

Just like the consumer computer market is separate market from workstations and servers, which is a separate market from tablets/MIDs, which is a separate market from dumb terminals.

Is the color red a separate market from the color blue? Exactly what criteria do you use to determine what is and what is not a "market" ? Seriously, I see such blatant nonsensical arguments in these forums that will say ANYTHING to make Apple right about everything no matter what. This is why I keep yelling HORSE CRAP.

Which is exactly why the DOJ inquiry isn't going anywhere. iTunes doesn't force exclusive dealing and the MFP provision is there to prevent, not cause, price discrimination.

I agree it shouldn't go anywhere, but this idea that it WON'T is just your opinion. I've seen plenty of stupid lawsuits, rulings and laws come down the pike that shouldn't get the results they get. Unlike you, though, I'm not a fortune teller.

You are vacillating wildly back and forth with contradictory arguments.

Your claim is that Apple is restraining trade in the market for x86 consumer hardware operating systems. That requires that Apple be in the x86 consumer hardware market, or else there are no competitors to be restrained.

So either Apple has hardware competitors or they don't. If they don't, there's no trade to restrain. You can't have it both ways like you're trying to do.

You don't seem to have a CLUE what you're talking about. Apple is dabbling in TWO *SEPARATE* markets at the same time. The fact their operating system runs on their own hardware in no way makes it a single market, even when it was all PPC. ANYONE can create the same hardware because there are no custom chips or the like (e.g. like the Amiga had) for them to claim to prevent someone from duplicating their hardware. It is the very fact that their HARDWARE and SOFTWARE are separate markets (i.e. their OS software competes with other OS software and their hardware is supposed to compete with other hardware). The problem is that Apple is selling hardware that can run any OS you want on them (they even make it easy to install Windows with Boot Camp), but they are denying the competition the right to install their software (separate market) on their own hardware. Where is trade being restrained? HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. aren't allowed to compete on even terms with Apple because Apple has carved out its own "segment" monopoly (i.e. 100% of OSX hardware sales plus potential sales for Windows and Linux as well while everyone else has no access to that market segment).

Exactly what part of that doesn't click in your brain? What part of the tying agreement found in the OSX license don't you link to the Clayton Antitrust law where it forbids EXACTLY that so long as it has a "substantial" impact on trade. Apple is being anti-competitive through that contract and Clayton FORBIDS that. Given Apple's current size (having recently passed up Microsoft, even if only briefly) shows that it most certainly is having substantial economic impact. When one can easily show that in the past few years since the switch to Intel that the lion's share of their profits come from selling "Mac" hardware, it is very simple to show the link between Apple denying installation of its OSX operating system to anyone else's hardware with their sheer unabated profits that are WAY *WAY* above industry standards. One could easily argue that they could not obtain those profit levels (and thus their current market position) if not for the fact they do not have to compete for hardware sales from those that want to run OSX.

I've now said this more times than I can count on here. The logic is flawless. The law is crystal clear and Apple's ecnonomic impact could not be any more clear than this very thread shows. Yet I keep getting the same *BS* NONSENSE from the peanut gallery on this matter, throwing every STUPID RETARDED response in the book back at why Apple should be blatantly allowed to violate antitrust law (from clueless biased judges to "same market" nonsense to "they're too small to count" CRAP that confuses the software market with the HARDWARE one). Some of the people on here don't know their Mac from a hole in the ground.

Regardless, hardware competitors don't have a right to the software of their competitors. Once again, Microsoft's business model does not set the rules for everyone else. Palm's webOS is unique to Palm. Tivo's DVR software is unique to Tivo (and their brand licensees). Ford's Sync software platform is unique to Ford. HP-UX requires an HP server.

NONE of those software systems are sold publicly at retail outlets like OSX is. None of those systems will run on vanilla clone hardware either so your comparison is just plain IGNORANT.

And Microsoft gets 80% of its revenue from source other than Windows and is still the higher-grossing company by several billion dollars, so the comparison is, as ever, meaningless.

The only thing meaningless on here is your ignorant comments that show you couldn't argue your way out of a paper bag.

 

[matticus008]

You are unbelievable. You expect me to believe that you will call two different distribution methods of the same exact media "separate markets"

They're not just distribution methods of the same media. The definition of a market is fungibility. Digital music is sold and marketed separately, priced separately, and differs in the nature of the goods sold. A CD cannot be used everywhere a digital file can be used and vice versa. They don't report their revenues in the same category, and digital music stores and retailers for physical goods negotiate on different and separate terms. As a general rule, when an industry treats its categories separately, they fall under separate markets.

As an example: Coca-cola's bottling distribution is one market, while its fountain distribution is a separate market. It's the same "media" but not the same market. You can combine the two into an aggregate of markets, but that's for corporate- or industry-level comparison, and not for competition law.

Enterprise-class computer hardware isn't a part of the consumer market share reports. Windows doesn't have a 91% market share outside of consumer x86 hardware; Apple isn't in fifth place anywhere outside of consumer x86 hardware. They're both markets in the computer industry, and although you could use a server as your desktop, they're not fungible goods so they aren't part of the same market for competition law.

and yet people like you will not admit that hardware and software are separate markets.

Hardware and software are indeed separate markets. The fact that you can't even identify the moving parts of your own arguments is truly puzzling.

Apparently, what is and what is not a market depends completely on a person's opinion

No, it depends on fungibility. A digital file and a CD aren't interchangeable any more than a CD and a concert are interchangeable ways of listening to music.

Exactly what criteria do you use to determine what is and what is not a "market" ?

"Products that consumers will substitute for a given product in response to a 'small but significant and nontransitory' price increase when identifying the products that compete in an antitrust market" and/or "all producers that currently produce a relevant product and all producers that could easily and economically produce and sell the relevant product in a short period of time (e.g., one year) in response to a small but significant and nontransitory price increase."

In other words, fungibility.

You don't seem to have a CLUE what you're talking about. Apple is dabbling in TWO *SEPARATE* markets at the same time. The fact their operating system runs on their own hardware in no way makes it a single market, even when it was all PPC.

Here's the clue: you're the only one pushing the single market structure in your boneheaded attestations that there is no hardware competition with Apple.

The problem is that Apple is selling hardware that can run any OS you want on them (they even make it easy to install Windows with Boot Camp), but they are denying the competition the right to install their software (separate market) on their own hardware. Where is trade being restrained? HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. aren't allowed to compete on even terms

Apple has consumer operating system competitors--many of them, from Windows to Ubuntu to BSD, with new players like ChromeOS entering the mix. HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. don't make operating systems for x86 consumer hardware.

Apple has intense hardware competition--its 8% hardware share is dwarfed by four competitors holding a combined 70+% of the market. HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. compete on even terms with hardware.

What no one else offers is the combination of hardware and software, but that's not a market. That's an intersection of two markets. There is no requirement that a company release software developed for its own products to competitors. There is no requirement that features of products that could be sold separately actually be sold separately. There is no right to mix and match hardware and operating systems. Microsoft built a business out of doing it, but they could just as easily entered the hardware market instead.

You're not talking about competition. You're talking about, instead of competing, letting someone else sell something that a competitor made instead of making a better one themselves. If Dell wants something better than Windows, they are free to fund and develop it, and then they are free to put it on Dell hardware exclusively.

What you're advocating is indefensibly anticompetitive: "when companies fail to compete, they should be rewarded with the government forcing their successful competitor to give them free access so that they too can sell the successful product instead of having to make a better one, having borne none of the costs and none of the risk." It's utterly ludicrous.

You want to talk about separate markets? Then do so. The x86 consumer operating system market competitor is Microsoft. They're doing fine. The x86 consumer hardware market chief competitors are HP, Dell, and Acer, and they're doing fine, too. Neither market is restrained by Apple's decision not to license their OS to other vendors. If HP wants to boost sales of its hardware with a superior OS, no one's stopping them from developing one or from limiting it to HP computers.

I've now said this more times than I can count on here. The logic is flawless.

Your logic is baseless, as it has always been, and as it always will be. You've never attempted to educate yourself, and it is clear you never will.

The law is crystal clear

Indeed it is, but in perfect contrast to your claims.

NONE of those software systems are sold publicly at retail outlets like OSX is.

Actually, they all are, and updates, free or fee, are publicly available, too.

None of those systems will run on vanilla clone hardware either so your comparison is just plain IGNORANT.

Actually, they all will. There's nothing special about Palm hardware that webOS wouldn't run on an HTC. HP-UX runs on processors made by other companies. Ford Sync is based on ARM and Windows CE--the same hardware that underlies almost all in-car systems, and software that is used by several manufacturers. You're digging quite the hole for yourself.

I'll say it again: put up or shut up. I look forward to your reporting back with a case number so we can all watch your vindication.

 

[GamecockMac]

I've now said this more times than I can count on here. The logic is flawless. The law is crystal clear and Apple's ecnonomic impact could not be any more clear than this very thread shows. Yet I keep getting the same *BS* NONSENSE from the peanut gallery on this matter, throwing every STUPID RETARDED response in the book back at why Apple should be blatantly allowed to violate antitrust law (from clueless biased judges to "same market" nonsense to "they're too small to count" CRAP that confuses the software market with the HARDWARE one).

And you can go on repeating it even more times, but it still won't make your logic "flawless" or your argument any stronger. If Apple's violation of the law was as "crystal clear" as you seem to believe it is, then Apple would have been sued six ways to Sunday by now and would have lost in a slam-dunk decision for whichever hardware manufacturer(s) decided to bring the suit. But that hasn't happened...hmm, I wonder why not?

Now you can go on calling people "stupid" and "retarded" (don't bother with weak denials that you aren't blatantly name-calling, by claiming you're only attacking the "response" of other users), or you can accept the fact that if there was an Clayton/Sherman antitrust case against Apple that was as airtight as you claim, it would have been brought by now, and Apple would have been the loser. Okay, go ahead and give us some more of your amusing conspiracy theories about how Apple has somehow bought off the entire federal judiciary and has the FTC in their hip pocket.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Hardware and software are indeed separate markets. The fact that you can't even identify the moving parts of your own arguments is truly puzzling.

Show me where I've *EVER* said they were the same market. You're a darn LIAR now.

No, it depends on fungibility. A digital file and a CD aren't interchangeable any more than a CD and a concert are interchangeable ways of listening to music.

Bullcrap. They are 100% interchangeable. You are confusing a storage medium with what is recorded on it. I can EASILY bring the music in from a CD into iTunes into MP3 or AAC (same as it is sold on iTunes). I can also easily do the reverse. I can burn a CD with the music from iTunes onto it. I can also put them onto a hard drive or a USB stick. Your statements are so flipping IGNORANT it's unreal.

BTW, a brick and mortar store could easily do the same and offer the same if it wished to do so. You could bring in a USB stick and they could sell you a digital set of songs and move them onto the stick or burn a CD. The only reason this hasn't happened is that they seem to think that they provide added value with actual liner notes, covers, etc. Don't think it won't happen at some point. I could easily see a vending machine device in a store handle music sales and offer it on a number of mediums (either provided or suit to fit like bringing your own coffee mug to certain coffee vending machines).

Here's the clue: you're the only one pushing the single market structure in your boneheaded attestations that there is no hardware competition with Apple.

I've stated my case based on Clayton. It is not based on a single market. It is based on TYING together two markets artificially through contract (in this case Apple's license agreement for OSX) for the sole purpose of using one market (i.e. OS) to force or increase sales in another market (i.e. hardware). This is extremely simple and easy to understand and the law is very clear as well.

Apple has consumer operating system competitors--many of them, from Windows to Ubuntu to BSD, with new players like ChromeOS entering the mix. HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. don't make operating systems for x86 consumer hardware.

That has ZERO relevance. Apple is the one leveraging one market to increase sales in another market (i.e. If you want OSX, then you MUST buy Apple hardware, even though there is no technical reason to 'need' it. You should be able to install your purchased retail copy of OSX on any hardware of your choice. The only thing stopping you is an artificial contract that violates the Clayton Act.).

Apple has intense hardware competition--its 8% hardware share is dwarfed by four competitors holding a combined 70+% of the market. HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. compete on even terms with hardware.

You tell me its hardware share is dwarfed, then COMBINE 4 competitors to arrive at this inflated "70%" number (each individual company's share is far closer to Apple's), but more importantly, you also fail to mention profit margins, which are FAR FAR more important than numbers of computers sold. Apple's margins (due to having no competition for sales from users of OSX) are VASTLY higher than the rest of the industry. You also fail to mention that Apple's share of computers over $1000 is 92%!!!!!

Once again, you are either totally completely IGNORANT of the actual important facts of the case OR you are trolling based on half truths and a limited presentation of information (ignoring the relevant data and pointing instead to irrelevant data). Clayton only requires anti-competition through tying to be of "substantial economic" impact. 92% of $1000+ computers, massively higher profit margins than ANYONE else and now the elevation of the company to a standing that is at least sometimes higher than Microsoft (the monster tech company of all time) all prove Apple is no small player and that their contract clause violations of Clayton are a large part of what propelled them there in recent years.

What no one else offers is the combination of hardware and software, but that's not a market. That's an intersection of two markets.

Once again, NO ONE said it was a market. *YOU* keep saying that and then pretending I said it and I never *EVER* did. That is why I call you a LIAR. What I said is that they are not entitled to write a contract that forces a sale of a 2nd market product tied to a 1st market product. By tying OSX in CONTRACT to ONLY their hardware, they are limiting hardware sales of anyone that wants to buy OSX and thus restraining trade (anti-competition). By the Clayton Law, they have no right to put that clause in their contract.

There is no requirement that a company release software developed for its own products to competitors.

NO ONE asked them to! You can buy it at retail at a place like Best Buy for goodness sake! STOP MAKING CRAP UP! The violation of the law is in their contract clause (the EULA for OSX). It has NOTHING to do with providing code and NO ONE *EVER* said it did (except you in reference to some imaginary argument you're apparently having with some imaginary person in another dimension that said none of those things).

There is no requirement that features of products that could be sold separately actually be sold separately. There is no right to mix and match hardware and operating systems. Microsoft built a business out of doing it, but they could just as easily entered the hardware market instead.

OSX already is available separately (look in your nearest Best Buy). It doesn't even say upgrade on it. And yes there IS a requirement. It's the Clayton Antitrust Act. Why don't you actually READ it? Eh? Maybe because then you'd have no argument straw-men to keep throwing up in the air based on lies and nonsense?

You're not talking about competition. You're talking about, instead of competing, letting someone else sell something that a competitor made instead of making a better one themselves. If Dell wants something better than Windows, they are free to fund and develop it, and then they are free to put it on Dell hardware exclusively.

Once again, are you living in another freaking dimension? How do you come up with the bits like "exclusively" there? Who said Dell would get to sell it exclusively? Apple does not have to sell them OSX in OEM form, but Dell can go and purchase it at retail like any other customer and then resell it. To deny that ability is to restrict free trade. Maybe you would like to bring back separate but equal while you're at it?

What you're advocating is indefensibly anticompetitive: "when companies fail to compete, they should be rewarded with the government forcing their successful competitor to give them free access so that they too can sell the successful product instead of having to make a better one, having borne none of the costs and none of the risk." It's utterly ludicrous.

How is buying OSX at retail and then reselling it (possibly at no profit for the cost of the software what-so-ever) anti-competitive? It's selling MORE copies of OSX *from* Apple!!! It gives them more customers for their software product. No, I'm afraid the only thing "ludicrous" around here is your utterly bizarro world logic where 1+1 somehow equals 42.

Let Apple compete software with software and hardware with hardware. Their hardware is no different than Dell hardware. Dell doesn't make operating systems. That is Microsoft's market. Apple's OSX should be competing with Windows, not Dell. Apple's HARDWARE should be competing on its own merits with Dell hardware, not telling OSX users that they cannot buy a Dell if they want to use their software.

It is truly AMAZING that you are so blind that you cannot see or comprehend ANY of this. I don't believe it. You have shown your colors before and I don't recall you even liking Macs PERIOD, but do like coming on here to argue to get a rise out of Mac users.

Now you can go on calling people "stupid" and "retarded" (don't bother with weak denials that you aren't blatantly name-calling, by claiming you're only attacking the "response" of other users)

Why not claim that? It's what everyone keeps doing to me on here, calling my 'arguments' all kinds of nasty names. Or have you not read their posts as well? Do you find your own posts not implying such things as well by the very tone of your words? Don't bother telling me no because you and I both know it would be a lie. I only have to look to the very next post to see you calling Battlestar's 'arguments' "garbage". Pot meet kettle!

, or you can accept the fact that if there was an Clayton/Sherman antitrust case against Apple that was as airtight as you claim, it would have been brought by now, and Apple would have been the loser. Okay, go ahead and give us some more of your amusing conspiracy theories about how Apple has somehow bought off the entire federal judiciary and has the FTC in their hip pocket.

I don't have to prove anything nearly so conspiratorial. I can point to the case against Microsoft and how on appeal, the judge completely turned the penalties upside down and pretty much killed the entire trial despite conviction. Suddenly they are not going to be split into separate companies due to antitrust violations and they get what amounts to a whispy breeze across their wrist and keep on trucking. In case you haven't noticed, there has been almost NO enforcement of antitrust law in this country for many decades. Why is that? One only need to look at the various "too big to fail" companies out there to see that the law was breached and the consequences reaped. The problem stems from corruption in government at the hands of campaign contributions and lobbying from these corporations. If you think that is far-fetched then you are behaving very foolishly. It's on the news constantly. Government is broken in the U.S. Banks collapsing, oil spills pouring out the Gulf.... WTF makes you think I have much to prove at all in that regard?

 

[R94N]

Good for Apple. Macs are doing well, the iPad's kicking ass, and everyone's got an iPod or iPhone.

 

[matticus008]

Show me where I've *EVER* said they were the same market.

It's been explained to you, dozens of times by dozens of people over several years. You cannot define a market in which Apple has market power in either OSes or hardware without defeating your argument.

If Apple has no hardware competitors, then there is no trade to restrain.

Bullcrap. They are 100% interchangeable. You are confusing a storage medium with what is recorded on it.

No, you are confusing what you can create from a product with what it is. It's accounted differently, it's negotiated separately, it's measured separately for ratings and royalties, it's a separate market.

If nothing else, understand that the relevant market for a competition case is the smaller of nested markets: again, I point you to the clear Coca-cola example. Your argument is a manifestation of the du Pont fallacy.

I've stated my case based on Clayton. It is not based on a single market. It is based on TYING together two markets artificially through contract (in this case Apple's license agreement for OSX) for the sole purpose of using one market (i.e. OS) to force or increase sales in another market (i.e. hardware). This is extremely simple and easy to understand and the law is very clear as well.

And for the last time, your "clear" case is not based on the law:

1. Tying requires the purchase of two unrelated products. If you purchase a razor and a blade together, it's not tying unless the blade comes from another company. (E.g. the bundling of Windows OS with a Dell computer.)
2. Where products are naturally related, a term of art that has already been explained to you, there is no tying. Apple makes and provides updates for OS X for its own hardware, just as Palm makes and provides updates for webOS for Palm hardware only, just as Magellan sells map and data updates for its own GPS receivers. The fact that all of these run on commodity hardware is meaningless.
3. Even if you managed to convince anyone that software to enable hardware to function was somehow naturally unrelated, tying of unrelated products is not illegal without market power.
4. Apple does not have market power over competitors in either hardware or operating systems. In order to provide a case of market power, you have to eliminate competitors from the market, which eliminates the trade you allege is restrained.
5. Even tying WITH market power is not illegal without a significant adverse effect on commerce. Microsoft's bundling of IE and Media Player with Windows was not itself sufficient to establish a violation--it was their conduct with regard to distribution deals and the active interference with alternatives that became the issue.

The fact you just keep ignoring it and then telling me I said something else

The problem is that you don't understand what you're saying.

That has ZERO relevance. Apple is the one leveraging one market to increase sales in another market (i.e. If you want OSX, then you MUST buy Apple hardware, even though there is no technical reason to 'need' it.

That doesn't matter. There is no technical reason Ford can't sell Sync to VW. There is no technical reason Palm can't let HTC use webOS. There is no technical reason HP-UX is limited to HP. There is no technical reason Tivo software is limited to Tivo DVRs. There is no technical reason Magellan's GPS software is limited to Magellan hardware. They all run on commodity platforms developed by other people.

You can't possibly be stupid enough not to understand that you don't have to let your competitors use your products to sell their own.

You tell me its hardware share is dwarfed, then COMBINE 4 competitors to arrive at this inflated "70%" number (each individual company's share is far closer to Apple's)

Apple's hardware share is 8%. You're so desperate to argue that you don't even know what you're mad about. There's nothing inflated about it. Of the 92% of the market that isn't Apple, HP has 26%, Dell has 25%, Acer has 13%, and Toshiba has 8%. The only one that is close to Apple is Toshiba, and those four companies are 73% of the market. In other words, because Apple is in fifth place, that means that it could not possibly have more than 19% under the best of circumstances--nowhere near market power.

You also fail to mention that Apple's share of computers over $1000 is 92%

Because that's not a market. Audi has about a 1% market share in the US in passenger automobiles. If you shut your eyes and ignore anything under $40,000, that "share" increases twentyfold, but only because your ignoring bulk of the market through artifice.

Clayton only requires anti-competition through tying to be of "substantial economic" impact.

No, the one-sentence summary you've read makes that specification. All of these words are terms of art that have developed to have clear definitions over the past 90 years.

Your blatant ignorance of all of them has led you far astray.

By tying OSX in CONTRACT to ONLY their hardware, they are limiting hardware sales of anyone that wants to buy OSX and thus restraining trade (anti-competition). By the Clayton Law, they have no right to put that clause in their contract.

For the last time, this is pure fiction. Companies are not required to give up their competitive advantages. Microsoft did not get in trouble for adding IE to Windows. Microsoft would

NO ONE asked them to! You can buy it at retail at a place like Best Buy for goodness sake!

You can buy all sorts of dependent software at Best Buy.

It doesn't even say upgrade on it.

It doesn't have to.

Dell doesn't make operating systems. That is Microsoft's market. Apple's OSX should be competing with Windows, not Dell.

And again, for the 90,000th and last time, Microsoft's business model does not dictate how the world works. If Dell wanted to make its own OS and sell it for its own hardware, it could do exactly that. If Microsoft had wanted to get in the PC business, it could have kept Windows on their own hardware (and thus would never have achieved a monopoly to abuse).

It's what everyone keeps doing to me on here, calling my 'arguments' all kinds of nasty names.

Because they're not arguments. They're rehashed tantrums without any basis in reality and without any attempt to learn from your earlier defeats.

It's the same recycled garbage time after time, and it's not even responsive to the points raised against it. Willful ignorance is just sad. When you respond with a case number for your apparent slam-dunk case, this discussion will continue. The many failed lawsuits and the decisive and immediate rejection of this exact hogwash argument by an experienced antitrust attorney-turned-respected-judge is the only clue you need, but it's about as likely to register with you as the Tea Party collectively dropping dead tomorrow.

Anyone with real questions and a desire to understand competition law is welcome to ask them.

 

[lilo777]

MSFT overtakes AAPL in market capitalization

Well, it did not last long. Microsoft once again is bigger than Apple in market capitalization.

 

[rasmasyean]

Well, it did not last long. Microsoft once again is bigger than Apple in market capitalization.

IPhone 4 blunders and Windows Phone 7 hypes. PPL try to sepculate and sometimes the mob mentality sets in. That's how lots of these trading ppl make money.

 

[GamecockMac]

Well, it did not last long. Microsoft once again is bigger than Apple in market capitalization.

Were you looking for one of these?

 

[Queso]

Well, it did not last long. Microsoft once again is bigger than Apple in market capitalization.

Just four days later and this is already completely redundant information. The day after that article came out Apple released better than expected profits and the stock price jumped back up, taking the market cap back past Microsoft's value.

Current market caps of both companies (according to Google's finance pages)

MSFT = $222.08bn
AAPL = $235.03bn