e would need to prove that consumers would benefit by constricting Microsoft. The Department of Justice believed that by requiring PC manufacturers that want to license Windows 95 also to license Internet Explorer, Microsoft is unfairly leveraging Windows' ubiquitousness. "Microsoft is unlawfully taking advantage of its Windows monopoly to protect and extend that monopoly," said Reno during a news conference. (Kaphing 5)In reference to Microsoft's policy, Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein, who heads the Justice Department's antitrust division, said, “Each of Microsoft's products should compete on its own merits, and while anyone can give away a browser, no one can force it onto a computer desktop unless you have monopoly power. When you use that power to snuff out a new entrant, that's what's prohibited. Microsoft's licensing policy is designed to inhibit its main browser competitor, Netscape Communications Corporation, from competing in the market. Web browsers represent a significant software category because they could erode Microsoft's operating-system monopoly. That sentiment echoes Netscape's positioning of browser-based clients as computing platforms, not just simple Internet viewers. Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale had approached the Department of Justice earlier this year regarding the browser market and Microsoft's practices.”(Kaphing 5)U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft used its dominance of the PC software industry to stifle competition, therefor hurting consumers. He states in his ruling that Microsoft enjoys so much power in the market for the PC operating systems that if it wished to exercise this power solely in terms of price, it could charge a price for Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market. Moreover, it could do so for a significant period of time without losing an unacceptable amount of business to competitors. In other words, Micro...
