rotest, the U.S. government began the second anti-trust investigation. Stakes were even higher for MS as they faced a possible split of the company into an OSS producer and an application producer. So, to give the trial a little fudge factor, DOJ officials split the action into two suits: 1) that bundling software suppresses other companies’ ability to compete, and 2) that it is Microsoft uses its dominance of the OSS market to force consumers to use their applications (especially IE) (Fitch). This allowed them two avenues of attack, since MS has a huge cash surplus waiting for the best lawyers in the world; not to mention the fact that Microsoft had already effectively beaten the government in the previous suit.In regards to the first charge the government’s case stated that users do not search out other software because MS applications are so prominently displayed as soon as they boot up their pc. Their contention was that this limits other companies’ abilities to get a foothold into a market. Microsoft’s defense was based on claim that IE had become an integral part of their Windows 98 operating system. The testimony of the software giant stated that the removal of Internet Explorer would cause the OSS to malfunction. The U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Microsoft against the injunction, significantly weakening the DOJ’s argument that MS (Moeller). The reasons that they did this are as follows: 1) Microsoft allowed OEMs to preload other browsers onto machines with Windows, 2) Netscape’s Navigator was available for free on the Internet, and 3) that the browser interface was an integral part of the operating system.The second point of the DOJ complaint, being the supposition that MS used its OSS dominance to force its applications onto large market shares, was the strongest point in the second anti-trust action. They extolled the fact that no matter what MS application you loaded onto your machine, I...
