Is Microsoft a monopoly? In 1999, Microsoft was indicted by the United States Department of Justice as the company was suspected of using anticompetitive contracts with personal computer (PC) manufacturers to maintain an illegal monopoly. At that time, about 95% of PCs were equipped with Intel processors and ran a Microsoft operating system (OS). On April 3, 2000, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson delivered his legal conclusions. He said Microsoft had committed and attempted monopolization. Monopoly is defined as the existence of a single seller in the market who produces goods without substitutes. A single company controls the resources and the market by selling a single product. In my opinion, Microsoft is a monopoly not because of its market share in the PC software market. In fact, Microsoft's production chain relies on state enforcement of legal duplication monopolies known as copyrights. For example, imagine there are two farmers known as Edward and Jacob. Edward wants to start his papaya business. Initially, Edward buys a pawpaw from Jacob and uses the seeds of the pawpaw to plant pawpaw trees. Edward devotes his own energy and time to the entire papaya plantation. After the harvest, Edward can sell them in direct competition with Jacob. However, if it is a Windows operating system, Edward cannot simply duplicate it and sell it several times, even if he can invest time and money. This is a crime involving copyright infringement. It is distinguished between a coercive monopoly and a dominant private company like Microsoft. A coercive monopoly is created by government law and gains market share through legal protection from competition. On the other hand, Microsoft reaches...... middle of paper ......devices. Now Google's Android and Apple's iOS are on the rise. In fact, Windows' global share has been reduced to around 30 percent. Don't forget to mention that Android is currently a bigger platform than Windows. Finally, and more recently, this graph from analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco illustrates that the PC sector is no longer only eclipsed by the explosion in sales of smartphones and tablets. The PC has no longer become the center of the personal computing world. Instead, it becomes a specialized office productivity device. The multiple choice of devices means that the full-fledged PC is still not the most practical, efficient or simple alternative for achieving what a user wants to do. In a nutshell, current market share in the IT industry does not guarantee future success. Innovative competitors frequently break up what might appear to be monopolies..