s. They simplycreated products that the people liked, and the people bought them.On the other side of the issue, are the people who believe that Microsoft isindeed operating in a monopolistic manner and therefore, the government shouldintervene and split Microsoft up. Those who are under the assumption thatMicrosoft should indeed be split up, believe that they should either be splitinto two separate companies: one dealing with operating systems and the otherdealing strictly with applications. The other group believes that thegovernment should further split Microsoft up into three divisions: one companyto create operating systems, one company to create office applications, and onecompany to create applications for the home. All of these people agree thatMicrosoft should be split up, anyway possible.The first thing that proponents of Microsoft being split up argue that althoughMicrosoft has created all kinds of standards for the computer softwareindustry, in todays world, we dont necessarily need standards. Competingtechnologies can coexist in todays society, without the need for standards setby an external body or by a lone company such as Microsoft. A good analogy forthis position is given in the paper, "A Case Against Microsoft: Myth Number 4."In this article, the author states that people who think that we need suchstandards, give the example of the home video cassette industry of the late1970s. He says that these people point out that in the battle between the VHSand Beta video formats, VHS won not because it was a superior product, butbecause it was more successfully marketed. He then goes to point out thatbuying an operating system for a computer is nothing at all like purchasing aVCR, because the operating system of a computer defines that computerspersonality, whereas a VCRs only function is to play movies, and both VHS andBeta do the job equally.Also, with the development of camcorders, there have been the introduction ofmany ...
