|
I. Background
1. On May 18, 1998, plaintiffs the United States and twenty States and the
District of Columbia filed actions against defendant Microsoft Corporation, alleging
violations of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 & 2, and the antitrust and consumer
protection laws of the respective plaintiff States. The actions were consolidated, and
expedited discovery ensued. Trial began on October 18, 1998, and concluded on June
26, 1999.
2. Defendant Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") is a corporation organized
under the laws of the State of Washington with its headquarters in Redmond,
Washington.
-
Answer ¶ 41.
3. Microsoft's principal business is the licensing of computer software, which it conducts
on a world-wide basis. Microsoft licenses computer software throughout the United
States and elsewhere and delivers operating systems to computer manufacturers and
others across states lines and international borders, and its business has had a
substantial effect on interstate commerce.
- Answer ¶ 5.
4. Microsoft, among other things, licenses operating system and application software for
personal computers. The personal computer industry, which has seen tremendous
growth over the last decade, is an important, robust sector of the United States
economy. Microsoft software dominates critical sectors of that industry.
- See infra Part II (Microsoft possess monopoly power in operating
systems).
- Tevanian Dir. ¶¶ 6, 14, 22, 35 (Microsoft is also dominant in a number of
applications, including office productivity suites).
5. A Personal Computer ("PC") is a computer designed for use by one person at a time.
- Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, at 361 (3d ed. 1997) (GX 1050).
5.1 PCs (which include both desktop and laptop models), can be distinguished from more
powerful, more expensive computers known as Servers, which are designed to provide
services and functionality to multiple users, either in local area network or over the
Internet.
- Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 20.
- Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, at 430 (3d ed. 1997) (GX
1050).
5.2 A typical PC system consists of a number of components, including a
microprocessor, dynamic memory, a hard disk, a keyboard, a monitor, and an operating
system.
- Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 20.
6. PCs are built primarily by firms known as Original Equipment Manufacturers
("OEMs"). OEMs typically purchase from different third-party vendors and preinstall
various hardware and software components for their systems, including the operating
system and application software.
- Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 23.
7. OEMs develop and sell their PCs to consumers in a competitive market and
design their PCs and their hardware and software features to respond to consumer
demand.
- See infra Part II.A; ¶ 15.1.1.
- Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 24.
8. An Operating System is the "central nervous system" of the PC.
- Barksdale Dir. ¶ 69.
8.1. An operating system performs two basic functions. First, the
operating system allows the various components of the PC to communicate and
function with each other; it provides "the software that controls the allocation and usage
of hardware resources such as memory, central processing unit time, disk space, and
peripheral devices."
- Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, at 341 (3d ed. 1997).
- Farber Dir. ¶ 11 (the operating system "controls the execution of programs
on computer systems and may provide low-level services such as
resource allocation, scheduling and input-output control in a form which is
sufficiently simple and general so that these services are broadly useful to
software developers").
8.2. Second, an operating system provides a "platform" by exposing
Applications Programming Interfaces ("APIs") that applications use to "call upon" the
operating system's underlying software routines in order to perform various functions,
such as displaying a character on a monitor.
-
Schmalensee Dir. ¶¶ 93-94.
9. An Application is a software program "used to perform specific user-oriented
tasks".
- Farber Dir. ¶ 11.
9.1. Applications typically "run on top" of the operating system and draw
upon the services that the operating system's "platform" provides.
- Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 22
9.2. The term Platform is used in the software industry to describe
software that "provides features or services that can be used by software applications."
- Schmalensee Dir. ¶ 93.
10. Microsoft produces a number of PC operating systems, including MS-DOS
and successive versions of its Windows operating system, the most recent version of
which is Windows 98. Since at least the mid-1990s, Microsoft has dominated the
market for PC operating systems. As will be explained, Microsoft's market share has
remained well in excess of 90% during that period.
- See infra Part II.B.2; ¶ 21.
11. Applications are produced by numerous firms, including firms like Microsoft
that also produce operating systems and others, known as Independent Software
Vendors ("ISVs"). Microsoft's application software is dominant in several key
categories, most notably in office productivity suites.
- See infra Part V.F.1.b.(1).; ¶ 287.2.1.
12. All the components of a PC system -- the microprocessor and other
hardware, operating system, and applications software -- must be compatible with each
other. For instance, software, including the operating system and applications, must be
designed to be compatible with the PC's microprocessor, and application software must
be compatible with the operating system.
12.1. There are different types of PC systems.
12.1.1. An Intel-compatible PC is one designed to function with
Intel's x86/Pentium families of microprocessors or compatible microprocessors
manufactured by Intel or other firms. Microsoft's Windows operating system, and
different types of UNIX operating systems, are examples of operating systems that run
on Intel-compatible PCs.
- Fisher Dir. ¶ 62.
12.1.2. There are other types of PCs that use microprocessors that
are not Intel-compatible, such as the Apple Macintosh computer system. Operating
systems designed to run on Intel-compatible PCs, known as Intel-compatible PC
operating systems, will not function on an incompatible PC like the Macintosh; and
operating systems designed for an incompatible PC like the Macintosh will not function
on an Intel-compatible PC.
- Gosling Dir. ¶ 7.
12.2. Applications programs are typically written to run on a particular
operating system and cannot run on other operating systems unless the developer
goes to the time and expense to "port" the program to the other operating system. For
example, the version of Microsoft's popular Office productivity suite designed to run on
Microsoft's Windows operating system cannot run on the Apple Macintosh or even on
other Intel-compatible operating systems.
- See infra II.B.3.b.(1); ¶ 26.1.2.
13. One of the most important applications today is an Internet Web browser
("browser").
13.1. A browser is a "client application that enables a user to view HTML
documents on the World Wide Web, another network, or the users's computer; follow
the hyperlinks among them; and transfer files." A browser enables "the user to
examine, display, scan, and navigate via the Internet" information located on the "Web."
- Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, at 505 (3d ed. 1997) (GX
1050).
- Farber Dir. ¶ 11.
13.1.1. The Internet is a global network that links many millions of
PCs and a smaller number of servers together. Begun in the early 1960s, the Internet
exploded in popularity with the emergence of the World Wide Web ("Web") in the mid-1990s.
- Maritz Dir. ¶ 50.
13.1.2. "The Internet is a global network of computers constructed
by patching together many local area networks that use widely varying communication
media such as telephone lines, dedicated data cables, and wireless links." The Internet
links PCs by means of servers, which run specialized operating systems and
applications designed for servicing a network environment.
- Felten Dir. ¶ 11.
13.1.3. In simplest terms, servers host and provide access to the
Internet's content. In the case of the Web, this content consists principally of Web
Pages, which are created by Internet Content Providers ("ICPs"). There are millions of
web pages located on the thousands of servers that comprise the Internet.
- See infra Part V.E.1.a; ¶ 255.
13.1.4. Web pages can be accessed over those thousands of
servers from millions of PCs because the Internet uses a number of widely-accepted
standards. For instance, web pages are typically written in Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) and are transferred between servers and PCs using a common protocol known
as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
- Felten Dir. ¶ 13. (The Web is "characterized by a set of
standard data formats, including HyperText Markup
Language ('HTML'), and a set of standard communication
protocols, such as HyperText Transfer Protocol ('HTTP'),
that together allow computers to share multimedia
documents that may contain links to other such
documents.").
13.1.5. Consumers typically access the Internet through the
services of an Internet Access Provider, which can be an Internet Service Provider
("ISP"), such as Earthlink or AT&T Worldnet, or an On-Line Service ("OLS"), such as
America Online or Prodigy. Internet access providers are commercial firms that
connect users to the network of servers that comprise the Internet.
- See infra V.D.1; ¶ 213.
13.2. Although graphical web browsers have existed since 1993, the first
widely-popular commercial graphical browser was developed and brought to market by
Netscape Communications in late 1994. Microsoft introduced its browser, Internet
Explorer, in 1995.
- See infra Part III.B.1; ¶ 53.1.1; Part V.B.2.c; ¶ 126.
II. Microsoft Possesses Monopoly Power Over Operating Systems
14. Microsoft possesses monopoly power over operating systems for Intel-compatible personal computers.
14.1. Microsoft's monopoly power in Intel-compatible personal computers
is demonstrated by its customers' lack of any commercially viable alternative to
Windows and certain Microsoft conduct that makes sense only if there is a monopoly to
protect. See infra Part II.A; ¶¶ 15-16.
14.2. A traditional structural analysis, which shows that Microsoft
possesses a dominant market share protected by immense barriers to entry, confirms
that Microsoft has monopoly power. See infra Part II.B; ¶¶ 17-32.
14.3. Microsoft's monopoly power is also evidenced by its ability to
control price. See infra Part II.C; ¶¶ 33-38.
14.4. Dean Schmalensee's analysis that Microsoft lacks monopoly power
is contrary to the evidence, inconsistent with his prior testimony and writings, and
otherwise unreliable. See infra Part II.D; ¶¶ 39-50.
A. Microsoft's monopoly power is established by direct evidence of its
existence and exercise
15. That Microsoft has monopoly power in operating systems is directly
evidenced by the "sustained absence of realistic commercial alternatives" to Microsoft's
operating system product.
- Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 11:17-18.
15.1. Microsoft's principal customers, computer manufacturers (OEMs),
lack any commercially viable alternative to Windows.
15.1.1. OEMs are the most important direct customers of operating
systems. Because competition among OEMs is intense, they respond to consumer
demand. OEMs thus not only are important customers in their own right, but also are
surrogates for determining the commercial alternatives reasonably available to
consumers.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that the "great majority of
operating systems installed on PCs are installed on new
machines by OEMs." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 23; id. at ¶ 23
n.7 (noting that in 1997, 87.6% of all copies of Windows 95
were installed by OEMs).
- Professor Fisher testified: "OEMs's are, in some sense, the
representative of the consumer for certain purposes. They
are in competition with each other. They gain if they deliver
what end users actually want. They wouldn't care about the
restrictions on them if they don't think that it mattered in their
dealings with consumers." Fisher, 6/2/99am, at 22:1-6.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that "OEMs respond to
consumer demand." Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 15:16
(sealed session).
- See also Rose Dir. ¶ 17 ("If there were sufficient customer
demand for a different operating systems for personal
computers, Compaq would consider licensing that operating
system."); Von Holle Dep., 1/13/99, at 299:15 - 300:1 ("if
viable alternative emerged" to Windows, Gateway "would
evaluate" them because Gateway likes "to make sure that"
its "customers are offered a . . . choice of products that
become popular in the market place"); Ransom Dep. (played
12/16/98pm), at 71:20 - 72:4 ("If there's a product with a
competitive advantage or a price advantage, frankly, we
would consider it. But it has not been presented to us.").
15.1.2. OEMs uniformly testify that they lack any commercially
viable alternative to Windows:
- The testimony of Garry Norris, former Director of Strategy
and Software at IBM Personal Computer Company, vividly
illustrates the absence of commercially viable alternatives to
Windows. Norris testified that, "without Windows 95, you
couldn't be in the P.C. business." Norris, 6/7/99am, at
66:18-20. Indeed, Norris explained, IBM concluded in the
summer of 1995 that, if it did not obtain a Windows 95
license, it would "lose . . . anywhere from 30 to 90 percent"
of its sales volume, and "the IBM P.C. company would be
out of business" in "three to twelve months." Norris,
6/7/99am, at 65:16 - 67:18.
- The testimony of Microsoft's own OEM witness, Compaq's
John Rose, illustrates OEMs' dependence on Windows.
Compaq preinstalls Microsoft operating systems on over
90% of its PCs, including 100% of its popular Presario line,
Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 12:25 - 15:3; Rose Dir. ¶ 17 (since
1993, Compaq has "not consistently loaded any alternatives
to Windows on personal computers it markets to
consumers."), because Compaq has no commercially viable
alternative to Windows. Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 8:16-20.
- Gateway's Penny Nash testified that for Gateway to stop
licensing Microsoft operating systems would "be suicide."
Fisher Dir. ¶ 63 (quoting Nash Dep. 11/18/97, at 5-6); see
also Von Holle Dep., 1/13/99, at 298:2-23, GX 357 (sealed);
Fisher Dir. ¶ 63 (quoting Brown Dep., 3/5/98, at 10-11).
- Other OEMs gave similar testimony: Mal Ransom of
Packard Bell, a leading OEM, testified that Packard Bell pre-installs Windows on 100% of its PCs and has done so for
several years. Ransom Dep. (played 12/16/98pm), at 68:14
- 69:23. Packard Bell loads Windows because it is "the only
viable choice." Ransom Dep. (played 12/16/98pm), at 69:5.
Frank Santos testified that Hewlett-Packard has not
considered any other operating system for its consumer line
of PCs "because there isn't any out there." Fisher Dir. ¶ 63
(quoting Santos Dep., 4/13/98, at 7-8).
15.1.3. All three economic experts in this case agreed that there is
no commercially viable alternative to Windows to which a significant OEM can switch in
response to a substantial price increase or its equivalent by Microsoft.
- Professor Fisher testified that Microsoft's power is shown by
evidence that "Microsoft's customers do not believe that they
have serious commercial alternatives to Windows." Fisher,
6/1/99am, at 11:9-19; see also Fisher Dir. ¶ 63.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that there are no reasonable
substitutes for Windows to which a major OEM can switch
and that Microsoft can raise the short-term price of
Windows. Schmalensee, 1/20/99am, at 33:3-8; see also
1/13/99pm, at 68:17 - 69:2.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that OEMs consider Windows
"commercially necessary" and that "if confronted with a 10%
increase in their Windows license, they would not switch to
operating system products for other hardware platforms."
Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 39 (summarizing OEM testimony);
Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 70:9-12 (testifying that it is
"commercially necessary to be able to offer Microsoft
operating system . . . to end users").
15.1.4. Microsoft knows that OEMs have no choice but to load
Windows.
15.1.4.1. Microsoft told OEMs that they lack any alternative
to Windows and, indeed, that Microsoft was "the only game in town."
- Norris of IBM testified that Microsoft executives
repeatedly sought to use the fact that IBM had no
"commercially viable alternative" to Windows (Norris,
6/7/99am, at 66:18-20), and feared losing access to
Windows, to pressure IBM into dropping products that
competed with Microsoft. See infra Part V.C.2.b.(3);
¶¶ 209-212. Indeed, Norris testified, the Microsoft
executive in charge of its relationship with the IBM PC
company bluntly told IBM during negotiations, "'where
else are you going to go? This is the only game in
town.'" Norris, 6/7/99am, at 66:21 - 67:6.
15.1.4.2. OEMs told Microsoft that they lack any viable
alternative to Windows.
- John Romano of Hewlett Packard wrote to Microsoft,
when it imposed costly screen restrictions upon
Hewlett Packard, that "if we had another supplier, I
guarantee you would not be our supplier of choice."
GX 309.
- Gateway urged Microsoft
- redacted -
GX 357 (sealed).
15.1.4.3. Other operating system vendors recognize that
they do not provide a viable alternative to Windows.
- John Soyring of IBM testified: "As a result of the
applications and device support for Windows, in my
view, suppliers of PCs have no commercially viable
choice but to license Windows and to offering on the
vast majority of PCs they ship." Soyring Dir. ¶ 11.
- Avadis Tevanian of Apple computer testified: "For the
foreseeable future, Microsoft will maintain a market
share in excess of 90 percent of the desktop
operating system market, a dominance that will
enable it to continue to effectively control both price
and technologies." Tevanian Dir. ¶ 14.
- The CEO of Red Hat Linux also insists that Red Hat is not
a viable competitor to Microsoft. In a Washington Post
article he said: "'It just tells you how desperate Microsoft is
for a competitor that they're holding up a software box
produced by 100 guys in the hills of North Carolina.'" He
also said: "'We are absolutely not a viable competitor at
this time. We have every intention of being one. But how
long will it take? Realistically, it will be twenty years.'"
GX 1568.
15.1.5. Microsoft set the Windows royalty recognizing that OEMs
have no viable alternative to Windows.
- Joachim Kempin, Microsoft's Vice President for OEM sales,
testified that the prices set by other operating system
vendors were not a consideration in setting the Windows 98
royalty. Kempin, 2/25/99pm, at 97:24 - 98:23. To the
contrary, Microsoft set the royalty for Windows 98 by
"'compar[ing] it with Windows 95.'" Id. at 98:6 (quoting
Kempin's deposition, 21:20 - 22:6); see also Kempin,
2/25/99pm, at 98:15-23 (quoting Kempin's deposition, 22:10-22:6) (Kempin also did not consider "'competition more
generally'").
- Kempin testified that he did not consider the prices set by
other operating system vendors because, "with Windows 95
or 98, when it comes to value propositions, it just doesn't
come close to anything else. Meaning I believe competitors
are basically selling inferior-type products." Competitors
products are "inferior," Kempin explained, because "the
number of applications, peripheral devices, support on that
platform, basically, is so huge that the benefits of buying into
that platform is huge." Kempin, 2/25/99pm, at 98:24 - 99:5
(quoting Kempin's deposition, 22:19-24).
- Kempin, in contemplating "OEM pricing thoughts," wrote that
although conceivably, "[o]ur high prices could get a single
OEM . . . or a coalition to fund a competing effort," he
considers it "doubtful." He concluded: "Could they convince
customer to change their computing platform is the real
questions. [sic]. The existing investments in training,
infrastructure and applications in windows computing are
huge and will create a lot of inertia." GX 365.
15.1.6. OEMs do not believe alternatives to Windows are likely to
emerge in the next several years such that Microsoft is constrained from being able to
raise price or reduce quality today.
- Garry Norris testified that without a Windows 95 license, "the
IBM P.C. company would be out of business" in "three to
twelve months." Norris, 6/7/99am, at 65:16 - 67:18.
- Professor Fisher testified that there is no reason to "believe
that OEMs would substitute other operating systems for
Microsoft's Windows operating system in favor of anything
that can now be seen on the horizon"; that is, in "the next
few years." Fisher, 1/6/99am, at 69:23 - 70:1.
15.2. Both OEMs and applications developers (ISVs) recognize that they
are dependent on Microsoft and fear that Microsoft will use its monopoly power to harm
them if they favor Microsoft's rivals.
- When Microsoft released a Java development kit that reflected
Microsoft's "breaking away from pure Java," Paul White of
Symantec, an ISV, wrote that "it's better to say nothing than risk the
blast from MS." GX 2078.
- Barry Schuler of AOL testified that, because its applications must
run on Windows, "there's an absolute dependency on what the
future direction of that operating system." DX 2810.
- William Harris testified: "Intuit's dependence on the Windows
operating system creates additional dependence on the supplier of
the operating system, Microsoft. We depend on Microsoft for the
information, specifications, training, development assistance and
development tools necessary to develop our products in an
effective and timely manner." Harris Dir. ¶ 28.
- Hewlett Packard's John Romano testified that
- redacted - DX 2582A (sealed).
- A Compaq presentation entitled "Microsoft Meeting Preparation --
Portable and Software Marketing PC Division" dated January 13,
1993, states:
- redacted - The presentation continued: "Judgment: How
retaliatory would they get?" and lists the possibilities as follows:
"Pricing advantage -- Revenue from updates -- Access to early
SDKs -- Field sales activities (Microsoft has ~900 field sales
people) -- Support and training -- Inclusion in advertising -- Tone
toward Compaq in press and with customers -- Selection and
elevation of other OEMs as leaders -- Make integration relations
even more strained than they are today -- Access to source code,
modification ownership -- Microsoft directional information and
plans -- Customers." GX 433 (sealed).
16. Microsoft repeatedly took actions that make sense only because it has
monopoly power to protect.
- Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 12:14-17.
16.1. Microsoft's expensive effort to gain browser usage share can be
explained only as an effort to protect Microsoft's position in operating system and thus
demonstrates substantial and durable market power.
- As detailed below, Microsoft engaged in a very costly course of
conduct designed to gain a substantial share of the market for
Internet browsers. See infra Part V.G.
- This conduct evidences monopoly power because, as will be
explained (see infra Part V.G.), Microsoft could not have expected
to recoup its hundreds of millions of dollars in browser-related costs
except by thwarting threats to its position in operating systems and
thereby increasing or prolonging its monopoly profits in operating
systems.
16.2. Microsoft's monopoly power is also evidenced by its ability, for
several years, to force other firms to cooperate in Microsoft's efforts to exclude threats
to its dominant position in operating systems.
16.2.1. This conduct includes, among other things:
- Forcing OEMs to accept Microsoft's Internet Explorer
browser as a condition of licensing Microsoft's Windows
operating system. See infra Part V.B.
- Forcing OEMs to agree to costly restrictions on their ability
to customize their PC systems; OEMs agreed to those
restrictions, in the words of one executive, because they
lack any "choice of another supplier." GX 309. See infra
Part V.C.1.
- Threatening to retaliate against OEMs that favored products
that threaten Microsoft's operating system monopoly. See
infra Part V.C.2.
- Threatening to retaliate against Intel if Intel developed
platform-level software or favored Netscape or Sun in
various ways. See infra Part VI.
16.2.2. This conduct is part of a predatory course of conduct that
makes no sense unless Microsoft expected it to lead to monopoly recoupment in the
operating system market. All these acts reduced the value of Windows to end users.
Microsoft would not rationally have reduced the value of Windows unless it anticipated
that doing so would create or increase monopoly power and thereby enable it to earn
greater monopoly profits.
- Professor Fisher testified: "Microsoft has, I think, plainly
taken actions which only make sense if they believe that
they have a monopoly to protect. Those are, of course, the
actions which are in large part the subject of this case."
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 12:14-17.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that, if a firm can impose a
tie-in "that implies the firm has some power over price."
Schmalensee, 1/19/99am, at 40:12-22. Dean Schmalensee
also previously wrote that: "Evidence that competitors have
conspired to fix prices or divide markets is treated as very
good evidence that these competitors have market power"
(GX 1514), and that such evidence "perhaps" could indicate
"monopoly power." Schmalensee, 1/14/99pm, at 46:14 -
47:6.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "to the extent there is
evidence . . . which shows that Microsoft has . . . used its
position in the operating system market to exclude
competitors from either that market or from markets that
might facilitate the entry of a firm into that market, then that's
direct evidence of the ability to exclude" and "that by itself is
direct evidence of the existence of monopoly power."
Warren-Boulton, 12/1/98am, at 32:3-20.
B. Microsoft's monopoly power is also demonstrated by a structural
analysis
17. Microsoft's monopoly power is confirmed by a traditional structural analysis,
which shows that Microsoft possesses a dominant share of a well-defined market
protected by immense barriers to entry.
- Professor Fisher testified that "Microsoft's high market share is an
indication that it possesses monopoly power. The analysis of barriers to
entry confirms that monopoly power exists." Fisher Dir. ¶ 65.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton likewise testified that Microsoft "possesses monopoly
power" because it "for several years has enjoyed, and is projected for
several years to retain, a market share in excess of 90%," and this share
"is protected by substantial barriers to entry." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 7.
17.1. The standard way to determine monopoly power is (1) to ascertain
whether a firm possesses a very large share of a properly defined market and then (2)
to determine whether substantial barriers to entry protect that share by impeding the
ability of rivals to enter or to expand.
- Professor Fisher testified that "the ordinary way you proceed in an
antitrust case is to define a market and look at market shares" and
then determine whether there are substantial barriers to entry.
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 12:2-13; see also Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 6:1-3
(explaining that this is the "standard way" to determine monopoly
power); Fisher Dir. ¶¶ 32-39 (testifying that "monopoly power is
conventionally addressed by defining 'the relevant market' and
assessing shares in the market share"); Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶¶ 18,
42-44.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that: "'The traditional and most
common approach in an instance where one can define a relevant
market in the antitrust sense'" is "'to first look at shares of that
arket and then if shares are large, to move on to consider
conditions of entry.'" Schmalensee, 1/13/99pm, at 24:9-25 (quoting
GX 1526 (Schmalensee's testimony in Bristol)).
17.2. A large share of a well-defined market protected by substantial
entry barriers warrants an inference of monopoly power.
- Professor Fisher testified: "A large share of a properly defined
market" is indicative of the ability to exercise substantial market
power, and that where "there are significant barriers to entry,
monopoly power can be present." Fisher Dir. ¶¶ 32-36, 39.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that, if Microsoft's Windows
operating system enjoys the protection of substantial barriers to
entry, then he could not conclude that Microsoft lacks monopoly
power. Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 8:22 - 9:9.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified "that market share is an indicator of
monopoly power. It is one of several indicators of monopoly
power." Warren-Boulton, 11/19/98am, at 56:22-23.
1. Operating systems for Intel-compatible PCs comprise a relevant
market
18. The purpose of defining markets is to determine whether substantial and
durable market power can be exercised; accordingly, a properly defined relevant market
should include the set of products over which a single firm, if it controlled production of
those products, could exercise substantial market power.
- Dean Schmalensee testified that a relevant market consists of the
"smallest aggregate that could be profitably monopolized." Schmalensee,
6/24/99pm, at 58:15-23.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that a properly delineated antitrust market
includes the set of products over which a single firm, if it controlled
production of those products, could exercise substantial market power.
Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶¶ 26-32.
- Professor Fisher testified that the purpose of defining a market is to
determine the "set of things that could constrain the power of the alleged
monopolist." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 9:17-24.
18.1. The relevant market thus should include only reasonable
substitutes that in a reasonable period of time could constrain -- and thus defeat -- an
attempt to exercise substantial market power.
- Professor Fisher testified that a relevant market "should include all
those products that reasonably serve to constrain the behavior of
the alleged monopolist." Fisher Dir. ¶ 32; Fisher, 6/1/99am, at
9:18-21 (stating that "in defining a market and then in examining
market power, you typically look at . . . things that could constrain
the power of the alleged monopolist.").
- Dr. Warren-Boulton also testified that a relevant market should
include substitute products that could prevent the exercise of
monopoly power. Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶¶ 27-28. He further
testified that it is "important not to define the market too broadly" by
including products that are not reasonable substitutes, "for that
might understate the power of the firm whose conduct is being
examined." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 28.
18.2. These include:
18.2.1. Demand responses. The relevant market should include
products to which consumers could switch, without substantial difficulty, in response to
an attempt by firms in the candidate market to exercise substantial market power.
- Professor Fisher testified that, in defining a market, one
must look at "demand substitutability," which "concerns the
question of what are the products or the firms to which the
alleged monopolist's customers could readily turn in the
event of an increase in price." Fisher, 6/2/99am, at 69:22 -
70:1; Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 9:21-24 ("demand substitutability"
refers to "the set of products to which customers can turn in
the event of an attempt to earn supernormal profits" by the
alleged monopolist); Fisher Dir. ¶¶ 32-33 (same).
18.2.2. Supply responses. The relevant market should also
include firms that do not presently produce the product in question or a reasonable
substitute for it but which, without substantial difficulty, could do so in response to an
attempt by firms in the candidate market to exercise substantial market power.
- Professor Fisher testified that, in defining a market, one
must look at "supply substitutibility," which "refers to the
ability of firms who do not now produce demand
substitutable products, easily to produce demand
substitutable products." Fisher, 6/2/99am, at 70:9-11;
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 10:8-13 (same); Fisher Dir. ¶¶ 32, 34
(same).
19. Operating systems for Intel-compatible PCs comprise a relevant market
because they lack good substitutes; that is, there are no substitutes that in a
reasonable period of time could defeat -- i.e., render unprofitable -- an attempt by a
monopolist over such operating systems from exercising substantial market power.
19.1. Other "platform" products, such as Internet browsers and Java, are
not good substitutes for operating systems because they cannot function without an
operating system.
- Jim Barksdale testified: "I am not suggesting that the browser is a
replacement for the operating system; Navigator still needs an
operating system, such as Windows 98, running underneath it, but
Navigator can and does serve as a platform for certain network-centric applications." Barksdale Dir. ¶ 82; Barksdale, 10/20/98pm,
at 72-74 (Barksdale testified that while Netscape could serve as a
substitute for certain platform chacteristics, he does not believe that
Netscape could seriously substitute for all platform characteristics).
- James Clark, founder and former Chairman of Netscape, testified that:
"Netscape is not an operating system. It's not even a networked operating
system. . . . Netscape was developing a platform. A platform is not the
same as an operating system. . . . The idea was to make it independent of
the Microsoft operating system, but no attempt whatsoever to displace the
Microsoft operating system." Clark Dep. (7/22/98) at 44:25 - 46:16 (DX
2562). Clark explained Netscape intended to provide a software layer that
would run on top of otherwise incompatible operating systems and enable
them to use network or web based applications, but that "layer still relied
on there being some kind of machine and some kind of operating system
underneath." Clark Dep. (7/22/98) at 48:5 - 49:4 (DX 2562). Clark
categorically denied that Netscape intended for the browser to replace the
operating systems that it relied upon. Clark Dep. (7/22/98) at 48:5 - 50:4
(DX 2562).
- Netscape's Richard Schell similarly testified that Netscape intended to be
"operating system agnostics," (i.e., work well with all operating systems),
but not to replace operating systems. When Microsoft counsel followed
up by asking whether he regarded "the notion of Navigator replacing
Windows [as] a slightly ridiculous assertion," Schell explained:
"There are 14 million lines of code in Windows 9X. They must do
something. For us to have thought that we would replace all of
those would have been a stretch of the imagination. We thought
we could provide functionality that enhanced not only Windows but
Unix and the Macintosh and . . . for some developers and some
users, that would become their primary environment, but we would
never think that that meant we were replacing Windows." Schell
Dep. (9/15/98), at 103:17 - 104:22 (DX 2587).
- Dean Schmalensee testified that he is not aware of any "software
that only browses and does not do anything else and requires no
other software to run." Schmalensee, 6/23/99am, at 53:2-10; id. at
57:14-17 (same for other "web-based applications").
- Professor Fisher testified: "In the present case, the growth of the
Netscape browser or the widespread use of original Java might
have perfectly well have broken down the applications barrier to
entry and allowed other operating systems to compete. But it
would be the other operating systems that were then in the market,
not . . . either Netscape, the browser market, or Sun because of
Java." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 18:5-11.
19.2. Intel-compatible server operating systems are not good substitutes
for Intel-based PC operating systems because they lack the features and breadth of
applications users demand and are prohibitively more expensive.
- Sean Sanders of Novell testified that server operating systems do
not compete with Windows. Sanders Dep., 1/13/99pm, at 184:13 -
185:1. He further explained that to convert Novell's server
operating systems into desktop operating system would require
starting "all over again" and building the operating system "from the
ground up." "It is not easily transferable to" the desktop "role at all."
DX 2584.
- Sun's Brian Croll testified that Sun's Solaris operating system does
not compete with Windows. Croll Dep. (played 12/15/98pm), at
56:23 - 57:13.
- Ron Rassmussen, of Santa Cruz Operating Systems, testified:
"People are not purchasing our operating system as a desktop as
much as they did at one time" and that it is "more effective for our
strategy to move into a purely server role." DX 2581 (testifying that
using SCO's operating system for desktop use is prohibitively
expensive for users).
- Paul Maritz agreed "that the applications you find on a server are
different from those you find on an Intel PC acting as a desktop."
Maritz, 1/27/99pm, at 28:18 - 29:1.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "Intel-compatible operating system
products that are designed . . . to operate 'servers' are not viable
substitutes for a desktop operating systems" because they "are
generally more expensive yet do not provide the features
consumers demand when they purchase PC operating systems."
Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 40.
19.3. Nor do other devices, which run other (non-Intel-compatible)
operating systems, constrain the exercise of substantial market power over Intel-compatible PC operating systems.
19.3.1. A PC operating system accounts for only a very small
percentage of the cost of a PC system; therefore, even a substantial increase in the
price of a PC operating system above competitive levels will result in only a trivial
increase in the cost of a PC computer system to users.
- Maritz testified that the Windows royalty is "less than 5% of
the price of a typical new computer." Maritz Dir. ¶¶ 21, 132.
- Professor Fisher testified that a 10% increase in the price of
a PC operating system will result in only approximately 1 %
increase in the price of PC. Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 27:7-25.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton similarly testified that "even a 10%
increase in the price of the OS would result in at most a 1%
increase in the price of even inexpensive PCs." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 37.
19.3.2. A common-sense economic analysis, therefore, shows that
users will not in significant numbers incur the substantial costs of switching away from
Intel-based PCs, and hence from Windows, in response to even a large increase in the
price of the operating system.
- Professor Fisher testified that the "[q]uestion at issue in
assessing Microsoft's power is not whether a change--an
increase in the price of the P.C. as a whole would cause
people to turn to other non-P.C. devices, or for that matter,
to Apple," but rather "whether an increase in the operating
system price will cause that to happen." Fisher, 6/1/99am,
at 27:1-6. He then concludes that it will not because even a
10% increase in the price of the operating system would
result in "less than a 1 percent increase in the P.C. price."
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 27:14-16.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton similarly observed that "even a 10%
increase in the price of the OS would result in at most a 1%
increase in the price of even inexpensive PCs," and in light
of "the cost to users of switching to another platform, such a
small increase in the price of the PC platform would not be
expected to result in a large reduction in the demand for
PCs, and thus for PC operating systems." These facts led
him to conclude "that PC operating systems are a separate
market." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 37; see also Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 8:20-25, 9:17-25.
19.3.3. The evidence confirms that a substantial price increase for
PC operating systems (a trivial increase in the price of the PC) will not result in
switching away from PC systems, and hence PC operating systems, sufficient to make
the substantial price increase in the operating system unprofitable.
19.3.3.1. OEMs. As explained, OEMs will not switch away
from Windows (let alone start building other types of personal computers) in response
to a substantial exercise of market power (such as increased restrictions or prices) over
Intel-compatible PC operating systems.
- See supra ¶ 15.1.
19.3.3.2. Apple. The most obvious possible substitute for
users are other personal computers, such as Apple's Macintosh. But even Apple -- the
closest substitute to PCs -- does not constrain the exercise of power over operating
systems for Intel-based PCs.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that Microsoft's
present operating system competitors, including
Apple, are not "the primary constraint on Microsoft's
pricing." Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 24:16-25.
- Although some users do switch from PCs to the
Macintosh, Apple's Avadis Tevanian testified that
Apple still cannot gain substantial share and,
therefore, cannot effectively compete with Microsoft.
Tevanian, 1/4/99pm, at 9:20 - 12:18.
- Plaintiffs' economists testified that consumers'
switching from PCs to the Macintosh is not the result
of the exercise of market power over PC operating
systems and, therefore, does not show an effective
constraint on Microsoft's ability to exercise substantial
market power. Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 6:18
- 15:12; see also Fisher Dir. ¶ 137 ("Apple represents
the main potential alternative to desktop PCs running
Microsoft's Windows. (Although that alternative is not
sufficient to keep Microsoft from having monopoly
power.)"); Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 8:20-25
(testifying that if the cost of the Windows operating
system increased "by a small but significant amount .
. . not enough people are going to decide . . .to switch
to the Mac platform" to include Mac in the market).
Switching to the Macintosh simply means the value of
Microsoft's monopoly is shifting, not that its monopoly
power is dissipating. Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at
13:3 - 15:12 (testifying that the question is "'what is
the constraint on the monopoly pricing of the
operating system'" and that the "fact that demand for
the product, as a whole, is increasing or decreasing is
not the relevant question'").
19.3.3.3. Other information appliances. There is similarly
no evidence that other information appliances constrain Microsoft's ability to exercise
substantial market power over operating systems for Intel-compatible personal
computers.
19.3.3.3.1 First, most such appliances are complements to,
rather than substitutes for, personal computers, so switching is not likely.
- Steve Case stated publicly and testified that:
"It's hard to imagine that PCs won't be the
dominant way people connect with the Internet
for many years to come, and Microsoft has a
pretty amazing lock on that business. . . . Other
devices will emerge, but I doubt any will
challenge Windows." Case Dep. (played
6/4/99am), at 44:17 - 45:4; Ct. Ex. 1.
- AOL's Barry Schuler testified:
- redacted - Schuler Dep., 5/5/99, at 183:18-21 (sealed).
- redacted - Schuler
Dep., 5/5/99, at 183:24 - 184:12 (sealed).
- Professor Fisher testified that other devices
are not presently good "substitutes for PC's.
And you can perfectly well have a monopoly in
operating systems for PC's, despite the fact
that there are or may be a number of operating
systems for hand-held devices, TV set-top
boxes and so on." Fisher, 1/12/99am, at 7:14-16; Fisher, 1/12/99am, at 7:19 - 8:7. Professor
Fisher further testified that other information
appliances do not presently constrain
Microsoft's behavior. Fisher, 6/2/99am, at
83:20-23.
- Bill Gates stated that for "most people at home
and at work, the PC will remain the primary
computing tool; you'll still want a big screen
and a keyboard" for many applications and
"you'll need plenty of local processing power
for graphics, games, and so on. But the PC
will also work in tandem with other cool
devices. You'll be able to share your data--files, schedule, calendar, email, address book,
etc.--across different machines; and you wont
have to think about it; it will be automatic." GX
2059 (Newsweek article dated 5/31/99). In a
similar vein, the IDC forecasts that for PCs and
other information appliances, there will be
"some competition between these two
categories of devices. However, it is more true
that the two devices will help lift each other.
As a rising tide raises all ships, the growth of
the Internet as an important tool for
communication, commerce, and entertainment
will provide ample justification for both form
factors." DX 2423, at 35.
- See also infra Part VII.D.C.3; ¶ 396.2.
19.3.3.3.2 Second, even if other information appliances
became better substitutes for a wider range of PC functions in the future, a small
increase in the price of PC systems caused by a large increase in the price of the
operating system will not result in substantial switching to other information appliances.
In other words, while other information appliances may affect relative ubiquity of PCs,
and thus the value of Microsoft's monopoly over operating systems for Intel-based PC
operating systems, those appliances do not undermine the fact that there is a market
for such operating systems that is capable of being monopolized.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that a small
increase in the price of the overall computer
system will not induce large numbers of users
to incur the costs required to switch to other
devices. Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at
14:16-23; Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶¶ 37-39.
- Professor Fisher testified that, for this reason,
the existence of other information appliances
was "basically totally irrelevant" to the
monopoly power analysis. Fisher, 6/3/99pm,
at 65:1-7. "The fact that other devices are
going to be important, too, is interesting, but
we're not talking here, by the way, about a
monopoly of PCs themselves. We're talking
about a monopoly of operating systems for
PCs, and to believe that this has something to
do with eroding Microsoft's monopoly power in
operating systems, you would have to believe
that small changes in the price of the operating
system for PCs would cause people no longer
to buy PCs, but to ship" "these other devices."
Fisher, 6/3/99pm, at 65:23 - 66:6. See also
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 27:14-22.
19.3.3.3.3 Third, because the issue for market definition is
whether a non-trivial increase in the price of the operating system will cause switching
away from PC operating systems (to other information appliances running other
operating systems or otherwise) to a sufficient extent to render that price increase
unprofitable, there is no need to reach the question of whether PCs themselves
comprise a relevant market (that is, whether a large price increase in the cost of a PC
would be rendered unprofitable by switching).
- Fisher, 6/2/99pm, at 30:2-13; 6/3/99pm, at
65:23 - 66:6.
20. Microsoft internal documents and the testimony at trial of its witnesses also
support delineating a market for Intel-based desktop operating systems.
- Joachim Kempin testified, Microsoft tracks the share of "[o]perating
systems for Intel PC[s]." Kempin, 2/25/99pm, at 94:24 - 95:7.
- Microsoft internal documents analyze as "competition" other "x86 Os[s]" --
that is, other Intel-based operating systems -- but do not characterize as
competition other types of operating systems. GX 401.
2. Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing
share of the market for operating systems for Intel-compatible
PCs
21. Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the
relevant market.
21.1. Microsoft presently enjoys a market share in excess of 90%.
- Data sponsored by Professor Fisher and Dr. Warren-Boulton
shows that Microsoft's share of Intel-based PC operating systems
is well over 90%. GX 1.
- Professor Fisher testified: "Microsoft's share of personal computer
operating systems is very high and has remained stable over time.
Microsoft's worldwide share of shipments of Intel-based operating
systems has been approximately 90 percent or more in recent
years . . . . Even if operating systems for non-Intel-based
computers are included in the market definition, Microsoft's share is
still very high and stable." Fisher Dir. ¶ 64.
21.2. This share, which Microsoft has possessed since at least the early
1990s, has been stable through the many changes that have occurred in the computer
industry.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified: "This high market share has been
remarkably stable." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 45.
- Data sponsored by Professor Fisher and Dr. Warren-Boulton
shows that Microsoft's share of Intel-based PC operating systems
is projected to rise to 96% by 2001. GX 1.
- Professor Fisher testified: "Here, Microsoft's share of the P.C.
operating systems business has been high and stable for some
years. Further, it's expected that it will remain high for some
years." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 12:2-8.
- Microsoft North America FY96 Reviews, an internal financial report
compiled in June 1996, reported that the - redacted - GX 402, at
MS6 6001734 (sealed), GX 403, at MS6 6006356 (Microsoft North
America FY97 Reviews) (sealed).
21.3. Microsoft's share is projected to rise even further in the next
century.
- Rational Software "believes its continued success will become
increasingly dependent on its ability to support the Microsoft
platform, including Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT
operating systems." GX 1663 (SEC 10-Q), at 5. Mike Devlin, a
Microsoft witness, testified that Rational's "increased dependence"
on Microsoft will indeed be the result of "the increasing market
share of the Microsoft platform." Devlin, 2/4/99am, at 25:22 - 26:1;
Devlin, 2/4/99am, at 14:8 - 15:9.
- IBM's John Soyring testified that Microsoft's 92% market share will
"stay that high, if not get higher" in the next two or three years.
Soyring, 11/18am, 71:24 - 72:4.
- Professor Frank Fisher testified: "Here, Microsoft's share of the
P.C. operating systems business has been high and stable for
some years. Further, it's expected that it's going to remain high for
some years." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 12:2-8.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that Microsoft's share of operating
systems "has been above 90% since at least the early 1990s and
this dominance is forecast through at least 2001." Warren-Boulton
Dir. ¶ 45; see also Warren-Boulton, 11/19/98am, at 57:24 - 58:5
(referring to GX 1, which contains the IDC's "projections of
continuous and sustained and increasing market shares").
- A report prepared for Microsoft in September 1997 states: "Win32
penetration by household primary machines is currently 70% and
projected to reach 90% by December 1998." GX 447, at MS7
001195.
22. Precise calculation of Microsoft's market share or of the contours of the
market is, in any event, unimportant.
22.1. Even if one included in the market other products -- such as
"middleware" and other operating systems -- Microsoft would still possess monopoly
power.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "even if the market were defined
more broadly to include operating system products for all personal
computers--such as those offered by Apple or some vendors of
UNIX based operating systems that do not use an Intel-compatible
microprocessor--my conclusion that Microsoft possesses monopoly
power in a relevant market would still stand." Warren-Boulton Dir.
¶ 41.
- Professor Fisher similarly testified that even "if operating systems
for non-Intel-based computers are included in the market definition,
Microsoft's share is still very high and stable." Fisher Dir. ¶ 64.
- Professor Fisher testified that Microsoft possesses monopoly
power even if threats to its monopoly power, such as Netscape and
Java, are included in the relevant market. Fisher, 6/2/99am, at
61:11 - 62:10; 6/1/99am, at 46:12 - 47:19.
22.2. Market definition and calculation of market shares are intended only
to aid in determining whether a firm has monopoly power, so precise calculation is not
necessary where refinement and precision will not change the ultimate determination of
monopoly power.
- As Professor Fisher testified, "there will often be no bright line
between defining products as in the market" and "leaving them out
while remembering that firms that do not produce them can enter
fairly readily. But the lack of such a clear line will not matter, so
long as one remembers that market definition need not be precise
and that its purpose is to assist in analyzing the constraints on the
behavior of the alleged monopolist." Fisher Dir. ¶ 36; see also
Fisher, 6/2/99am, at 57:19 - 59:1 (discussing Fisher,
"Microecomomics: Essays in Theory and Applications" (DX 2487)).
3. Microsoft's dominant market share reflects monopoly power
because its position in operating systems is protected by high
barriers to entry
23. Microsoft's dominant market share reflects monopoly power because that
share is both the source of, and protected by, immense entry barriers that prevent rivals
from entering or expanding.
a. Definition of barriers to entry
24. An entry barrier is any factor that permits firms already in the market to earn
returns above the competitive level without inducing entry or expansion that would
erode those returns.
- Professor Fisher testified that a barrier to entry "permits the incumbent
firms" to "earn supernormal profits without having their business bid away
by the expansion of competitors or the entry of new firms." Fisher,
1/6/99am, at 52:20-23; Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 47:20-24.
- Dean Schmalensee characterized as consistent with his definition of an
entry barrier "'any factor that permits firms already in the market to earn
returns above the competitive level while deterring outsiders from
entering.'" Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 6:17 - 7:19 (quoting Areeda &
Hovenkamp).
b. The applications barrier to entry protects Microsoft's
dominant position in operating systems
25. The principal barrier to entry into operating systems is what has been
termed in this case the applications barrier to entry.
- Professor Fisher testified that the "dominant position of Microsoft's
operating system is protected by the applications programming barrier to
entry." Fisher Dir. ¶ 82; Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 48:4-11.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "the applications barrier to entry sustains
Microsoft's dominance, critically contributes to its monopoly power, and
helps explain why other Intel-compatible operating systems, such as OS/2
and Linux, have persistently small market shares." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶
56.
25.1. The applications barrier to entry results from a chicken-and-egg
problem: Users will not in large numbers use an operating system other than Windows
unless it supports a set of applications comparable to the set of applications available
for Windows, but ISVs will tend not to write comparable applications for other operating
systems in large numbers because those operating systems lack a large number of
users.
- Avadis Tevanian testified that Microsoft's dominant position rests in
part on "a commercial symbiosis that exists between application
programs and the computer operating systems on which those
programs run. An application program is condemned to
commercial failure if it will not operate reliably on the operating
system of a sufficiently large installed base of computer systems.
Similarly, the commercial viability of an operating system is critically
dependent on the availability of application programs . . . ."
Tevanian Dir. ¶ 15.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that as "an operating system gains
popularity, the incentive to develop software for the operating
system increases because the larger number of users for the
operating system product implies a greater potential market for
software developers. The development of yet more applications for
that operating system, in turn, increases the value of the operating
system to end users who, as explained, purchase operating
systems in significant part based upon the quality and variety of
applications available for it." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 53.
25.2. In other words, Microsoft's very large market share and installed
base of users -- which create incentives for ISVs to write first and foremost to Windows
rather than to other operating systems -- are themselves the source of an immense
entry barrier that keeps the share of operating system rivals low and protects
Microsoft's monopoly power.
- Professor Fisher testified that "Microsoft's high market share leads
to more applications being written for its operating system, which
reinforces and increases Microsoft's market share, which in turn
leads to still more applications being written for Windows than for
other operating systems, and so on." Because of this pattern,
Microsoft's "share is not likely to be eroded by new entry as long as
the applications programming barrier to entry remains strong."
Fisher Dir. ¶ 70.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "an operating system product can
rise to dominate the market, and once that dominance is achieved
maintain it, because of both the large number of complementary
software applications available for it and the flow of new
applications that are written to it." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 54.
(1) Microsoft possesses a dominant market share
because software developers have powerful
incentives to write applications first and foremost
to Windows
26. The economic factors that create incentives to write applications first and
foremost to Windows, and reinforce Microsoft's dominant market share, have three
aspects.
26.1. First, Microsoft has a dominant share of PC operating systems
because a much greater breadth, depth, and number of applications run on Windows
than on other operating systems.
26.1.1. Users demand operating systems in order to run
applications; and the greater the number, variety, and quality of applications available
for a particular operating system, the greater the demand for that operating system.
- In a Microsoft marketing plan entitled "Winning @ Internet
Content" dated June 22, 1996, Andrew Wright wrote,
"Microsoft's success to date as a platform company has
primarily been driven by the availability of compelling
applications for Microsoft operating systems. Operating
systems, including Windows 95, Windows NT etc, are a
means to an end and not an end in themselves. End users
buy computers and operating systems to run applications."
GX 407.
- Microsoft's Chris Jones wrote in August 1995 that: "While
there are many factors which determine an OS purchase,
fundamentally consumers purchase the system that runs the
cool applications first and best." GX 523, at MS98 0103654.
- Avadis Tevanian testified that "the commercial viability of an
operating system is critically dependent on the availability of
application programs--including well-accepted, broadly-used
application programs--that are written for use on that
system." Tevanian Dir. ¶ 15.
- Microsoft admitted in its Answer that the "popularity of an
operating system is to some extent a function of the number,
variety, and quality of applications available to use with that
operating system . . . ." Answer ¶ 58.
- Microsoft's pricing decisions reflect the fact that Windows is
demanded precisely because of the number of applications
written for Windows. Kempin testified that "competitors are
producing, essentially . . . inferior-type products" because
"the number of applications written for [Windows] is so huge"
is an observation of the "result of the applications barrier to
entry, and it's a fairly clear statement." Kempin, 2/25/99pm,
98:15-99:5 (quoting Kempin's deposition, 21:20-22:6, 22:19-24). This, Professor Fisher explained, is exactly what one
would expect Kempin, a non-economist, to say rather than
saying "I am protected by the applications barrier to entry
and so, I have freedom as to pricing." Fisher, 6/1/99pm, at
5:15 - 6:5.
26.1.2. Applications written for one operating system generally do
not run on another because each operating system has its own, unique set of
application programming interfaces ("APIs") to which applications are written.
- Because operating systems have different APIs, "software
applications written for one operating system will not run well
on any other operating system." Barksdale Dir. ¶ 71.
- See also Soyring Dir. ¶¶ 6-7 ("For an application to operate
properly on an operating system, it must be designed to
work" with that operating systems's APIs.); Gosling Dir. ¶ 12
(testifying that applications are largely "platform-specific");
Tevanian Dir. ¶ 12 ("Application programs must be
developed so that they are compatible with the APIs of the
underlying operating system. For example, Microsoft's
popular word processing program, Word for Windows, will
run on the Windows operating system; it cannot run on the
Mac OS operating system.").
26.1.3. A vastly larger number of applications are written for
Windows than the number written for other operating systems.
- There are "tens of thousands" of applications that run on
Windows. Martiz, 1/25/99pm, at 22:10-13; Rose,
2/17/99pm, at 24:24 - 25:9 (testifying that there are over
70,000 applications available for Windows).
- According to Microsoft's own economic expert, the number
of applications available for other operating systems is at
least an order of magnitude lower. DX 2098, at E2
(reporting that approximately 12,000 applications are
available for the Macintosh, 900 for BeOs, and 250 for
Linux).
26.1.4. As a result, Microsoft has a dominant share of the installed
base of operating system users and of the operating system market.
- Microsoft's Brad Chase explained, "Content drives systems.
Windows won the desktop OS battle because it had more
applications earlier than any other platforms." GX 510, at
MS7 004130.
- Microsoft's Ben Slivka testified that "an advantage Windows
has today in the marketplace and why customers prefer
Windows today over Macintosh OS or some other operating
systems is that there are a large number of applications that
customers need . . . that are available primarily on Windows
or have their best expression on Windows." Slivka Dep.,
1/13/99, at 717:22 - 718:4.
- Microsoft's own witness, Compaq's John Rose, conceded
that the huge number of applications available for Windows
relative to other operating systems is "certainly the prime
reason" why Compaq lacks a commercially viable alternative
to Windows. Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 19:21 - 20:20. As Rose
elaborated (Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 24:24 - 25:9):
Q: Now, is it fair to say that the absence of any other
operating system that can run those 70,000
applications or any predominant chunk of them is a
prime reason why you believe there is not at present
commercially viable alternative to Windows?
A: Yes, that is part of it.
Q: Okay.
A: The fact that other operating environments do not
support that rich set of applications which are being
utilized by hundreds of millions of personal computer
users.
- Joachim Kempin testified that he didn't consider other
operating systems in setting the royalty for either Windows
95 or Windows 98 because "'the simple fact that the number
of applications, peripheral devices, support on that platform,
basically, is so huge that the benefits for buying into that
platform is huge'" Kempin, 2/25/99pm, at 98:18 - 99:5
(quoting Kempin's deposition). As Professor Fisher testified,
Kempin's testimony reflects Microsoft's perception that it is
"protected by the applications barrier to entry." Fisher,
6/1/99pm, at 5:13 - 6:5.
- Packard-Bell's Mal Ransom testified: "There are
appropriate applications, be they games or education or
reference that are - that work with the operating system.
That's a major factor for us in the consumer business that
consumers can go buy solutions that match with our
operating system. And Windows has really become a
worldwide standard in that regard." Ransom Dep. (played
12/16/98pm), at 69:24 - 70:10.
- For additional evidence, see Von Holle Dep., 1/13/99, at
298:2-23 (testifying that Gateway lacks a commercially
viable alternative to Windows because "there's not enough
support in the form of applications in the marketplace to-to
run on alternative operating environments"); Tevanian,
11/4/98pm, at 11:12 - 12:18 (testifying that "it's still the case
that the predominant number of applications in the market
do not run on the Macintosh, and because of that, most
people will just refuse to buy a macintosh, they'll want safety
in the applications that are on Windows").
26.2. Second, because of the economic incentives they confront, ISVs
tend to write first and foremost to the operating system with the dominant share, which
is Windows.
- Professor Fisher testified that the principal reason "that ISVs write
for Windows first," is that "there are economies of scale and it pays
to write for the system that has the most users." Fisher, 6/1/99am,
at 54:2-5.
26.2.1. Software development is characterized by substantial
economies of scale. The fixed costs of producing software, including applications, is
very high. By contrast, marginal costs are very low. Moreover, the costs of developing
software are sunk; once expended to develop software, resources so devoted cannot
be used for another purpose.
- Paul Maritz testified that "software products can be
produced and distributed in vast quantities very rapidly.
Once a software product is created, the cost to copy is near
zero, and the product can be quickly distributed around the
block or around the world via the Internet or other networks."
Maritz Dir. ¶ 115.
- Intuit's William Harris testified that "the economics of
software development make high volume sales critical to
profitability. The fixed costs of developing software --
including, among other things, research, development,
programming and testing -- are very large and can only be
offset by high volume sales. By contrast, the variable costs
of manufacturing software once it has been developed are
quite low. Thus, it is essential for profitability of most PC-based software products that the product be compatible with
Windows. At Intuit, compatibility with Windows is so critical
that the company will focus on such compatibility even if this
requires slowing or abandoning development of software for
use with other operating systems." Harris Dir. ¶ 25.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "operating systems in
particular, and software in general, are characterized by
economies of scale. The bulk of the costs are development
costs" whereas the costs "of producing and marketing
individual copies of the product ('the marginal costs') are, by
comparison, quite small." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 47.
26.2.2. The result of economies of scale and sunk costs is that
applications developers seek to sell the highest number of copies; for it is only through
selling a large number of copies (for which the marginal cost is low) that the large, sunk
fixed costs necessary to develop software can be recovered
- Harris Dir. ¶ 25.
- Professor Fisher testified that because of the "upfront costs
of writing the software" and the fact that marginal costs of
distributing it are "essentially zero," ISVs will have "a big
incentive to write for the most popular operating system and
write for it first because you have the possibility of lots of
sales, and that means your costs per sale will be very low."
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 59:10-16.
26.2.3. This creates overwhelming incentives to write first and
foremost for Windows because writing for Windows -- the operating system with the
dominant share -- gives applications developers by far the highest expected return for
the sunk costs incurred.
26.2.3.1. An application that is written for one operating
system, like Windows, will operate on another operating system only if it is "ported" to
that system. As numerous witnesses testified, porting applications is both time-consuming and expensive.
- John Soyring testified that it took IBM "about a year
and a half to port Netscape Navigator from
Netscape's Windows implementation to OS/2, and
that was having access to the Netscape source code
and having the Netscape engineers working side by
side with us in their laboratories in California."
Soyring, 1/18/98pm, at 65:15 - 66:18; Soyring Dir. ¶
7 (porting "can be both costly and time consuming.").
- Jim Barksdale testified that "it is time-consuming and
expensive, however, to take a piece of applications software
developed for the Windows platform and port it to the OS/2
or Macintosh platform or to some other platform."
Barksdale Dir. ¶ 75.
- James Gosling testified that the "tedious process,
which is known as 'porting' software to other
platforms, dramatically increases the cost of software
programs, and consumes scarce time and resources
that could otherwise be devoted to developing
innovative applications." Gosling Dir. ¶ 13.
26.2.3.2. As a result of these factors, ISVs tend to write
applications first and foremost for the highest volume platform, Windows.
- Microsoft's Steve Ballmer wrote in July 1997: "It's
important for us to keep developer focus. And market
share is an important part of that. If you don't have
good market share, you're going to lose developer
interest." GX 679, at 8.
- iIntuit's William Harris testified that "it is essential for
profitability of most PC-based software products that
the product be compatible with Windows. At Intuit,
compatibility with Windows is so critical that the
company will focus on such compatibility even if this
requires slowing or abandoning development of
software for use with other operating systems."
Harris Dir. ¶ 25.
- Jim Barksdale testified that, because of Microsoft's
large market share, "if anybody wants to build a
product, they build it there first. You don't start a
company building for some niche operating system.
You always start with . . . the current version of
Windows . . . if you're going to be out there selling
any product, you have to be on that year's product or
you can't succeed in any reasonable way."
Barksdale, 10/27/98am, at 70:18 - 71:9; Barksdale
Dir. ¶ 73 (Barksdale explains that "ISVs looking at this
world quite sensibly write most of the software for the
platform with the widest use. That means that most
applications are written for the Windows platform.).
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "market share is, . . .
overwhelmingly, the critical issue in determining . . .
developers' decisions." Warren-Boulton, 11/19/98am,
at 86:14-16; Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 53 (testifying that
the development of more applications for a given
operating system "increases the value of the
operating system to end users" who "purchase
operating systems in significant part based upon the
quality and variety of applications available for it." If
the operating system's market share increases, "that,
in turn, is likely to cause software developers to
devote yet more resources to writing applications for
that operating system").
- Ron Rasmussen, Vice-President of the Santa Cruz
Operation, testified at his deposition that "all the
application vendors look at market share and the
cost/benefit analysis of providing that application on
any operating system. So if it costs them more than
they believe they're going to get in revenue or if they
believe their revenue is just a trade from one
operating system to another, there's no financial
benefit for producing that application on other
operating systems." Rasmussen Dep., (played
12/15/98am), at 58:3-9.
26.3. Third, the result of the above factors is that Windows exhibits very
strong network effects that reinforce demand for Windows.
26.3.1. A network-effect is a phenomenon in which the
attractiveness of a product increases with the use of that product by others.
- Fisher Dir. ¶ 42.
26.3.2. Windows exhibits strong network effects because each
user benefits from the fact that there are a multitude of other Windows users, that
Windows has a dominant market share, and that ISVs therefore write first and foremost
to Windows. The fact that ISVs write first and foremost to Windows, in turn, reinforces
demand for Windows and thereby augments Microsoft's dominant position and
perpetuates ISV incentives to write applications principally for Windows; and so on.
- James Gosling testified that, as a result of the incentives to
write "first" and often "only" for Windows (Gosling Dir.¶ 15),
"more software applications are available for Windows
users, which makes that platform even more attractive for
customers. This, in turn, reinforces the dominance of
Windows, and leads even more developers to develop
software for Windows." Gosling Dir. ¶ 18.
- Intuit's William Harris testified: "The development of software that is
compatible with the Windows operating system itself
reinforces the dominance of Windows, because consumers
seek to purchase the operating system that is compatible
with the greatest number of software applications. In turn,
software producers want their products to be compatible with
the operating system that is most widely used by
consumers. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle (sometimes
referred to as a 'network effect'), which tends to perpetuate
and enhance the dominance of the leading operating
system." Harris Dir. ¶ 27.
- James Barksdale testified: "Because so much software is
written for the Windows platform, consumers who want to take full
advantage of their computers and to have the maximum number of
choices of applications available continue to purchase machines
with a preinstalled Windows operating system. At the same time,
the more personal computers sold with Windows operating
systems, the more ISVs continue to write applications for the
Windows platform. In other words, the sale of computers with
Windows operating systems feeds the development of software for
the Windows platform, which in turn, generates additional sales of
computers with Windows operating systems." Barksdale Dir. ¶
74.
- Professor Fisher summarized: "Microsoft's high market
share leads to more applications being written for its
operating system, which reinforces and increases
Microsoft's market share, which in turn leads to still more
applications being written for Windows than for other
operating systems, and so on." Fisher Dir. ¶ 70.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that the development of more
applications for a given operating system "increases the
value of the operating system to end users" who "purchase
operating systems in significant part based upon the quality
and variety of applications available for it." If the operating
system's market share increases, "that, in turn, is likely to
cause software developers to devote yet more resources to
writing applications for that operating system." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 53.
26.3.3. This self-reinforcing cycle is confirmed by the observed
market facts: Windows' market share has been, and remains, much larger than rivals;
most ISVs develop new applications first and in the great numbers for Windows; and
the continued assurance of a large, up-to-date stock of applications for Windows
ensures that users demand Windows.
- See supra ¶ 26.1.3.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "the applications barrier to
entry sustains Microsoft's dominance" and because of it "no
rival has succeeded in mounting a sustained effective threat
to Microsoft's market dominance." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 56.
- John Soyring testified that "OEMs have no commercially
viable choice but to license Windows." Even though other
operating systems exist, OEMs "cannot reasonably base
their businesses on these alternatives, due, in large
measure, to the lack of applications and device support."
Soyring Dir. ¶ 11.
(2) The same factors that reinforce Microsoft's large
market share inhibit other operating systems from
challenging Windows
27. Just as Microsoft's high market share creates incentives for ISVs to develop
applications first and foremost to Windows, the absence of a significant installed base
makes it much more expensive -- indeed, prohibitively so -- for other operating
systems to ensure the availability of a sufficient set of applications to enable those
operating systems to become good substitutes for Windows.
- Professor Fisher testified that when a firm gains a large market share due
to network effects, "it will prove increasingly difficult for other firms to
persuade customers to buy their products in the presence of a product
that is widely used. The firm with a large share may then be able to
charge high prices or slow down innovation without having its business
bid away." Fisher Dir. ¶ 43.
- Dean Schmalensee agreed with John Soyring's testimony that part of the
reason for OS/2's failure was that "IBM did not have a sufficient number of
applications to compete effectively with Microsoft." Schmalensee,
1/14/99am, at 34:15-25. Similarly, Dr. Warren-Boulton observed that "IBM
has found with OS/2 that it is simply impossible to effectively compete with
Microsoft in the home computer market because of the problem that it
doesn't have enough applications." Warren-Boulton, 11/24/98am, at 53:5-8. This competition between OS/2 and Windows illustrates the operation
of network effects, in which "the firm with the largest market share
becomes larger and the firm with the smaller market share becomes
smaller." Warren-Boulton, 11/24/98am, 52:20-21.
27.1. First, contrary to Microsoft's contention that all it takes to create a
rival to Windows is applications in a few key categories (Schmalensee, 6/22/99pm, at
60:12-20; Maritz, 1/27/99pm, at 10:2 - 11:2), to provide a viable substitute for Windows,
a rival operating system would need to offer both (1) a large, diverse, and frequently
updated set of applications and (2) assurances to users that such applications will be
available in the future.
- See supra ¶ 26.2.3.
- Although both Linux and Be OS, two relatively new Intel-based PC
operating systems, support several hundred applications --
including applications in the categories users tend to use most
(such as word processing, personal finance, and browsing)--
neither, as Dean Schmalensee conceded, can effectively substitute
for Windows. (Schmalensee Dir. ¶ 107, 108). The reason, as
Microsoft's own OEM witness, John Rose, explained, is that such
"operating environments do not support that rich set of applications
which are being utilized by hundreds of millions of personal
computer users." Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 24:24 - 25:9.
- Avadis Tevanian testified that Apple -- despite having thousands of
applications, including applications in all the "categories" users
frequently employ -- cannot gain users from Microsoft because "it's
still the case that the predominant number of applications in the
market do not run on the Macintosh, and because of that, most
people will just refuse to buy a Macintosh, they'll want safety in the
applications that are on Windows." Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 11:12
- 12:18.
- Paul Maritz conceded that other information devices, running other
operating systems, cannot "be a real competitor" unless they
support "a wide range of applications." Maritz, 1/27/99pm, at 11:3-24 (quoting Maritz's deposition).
- Professor Fisher testified that an "entrant would have to get written
for it -- and show that there was an assurance that this would
continue -- applications of the general number and breath for
Windows, and I would suppose that for the more popular
applications, the entrant would probably need the same ones."
Fisher, 1/13/99am, 5:9-14; Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 56:2-9 (similar).
27.2. Second, Microsoft's large installed base makes it prohibitively
expensive for rival operating systems to acquire the large set of applications necessary
to compete effectively with Windows.
27.2.1. The sunk costs required for an operating system vendor
itself to create the necessary applications itself are prohibitively large.
- Dean Schmalensee conceded that no operating system
vendor will develop the necessary applications on its own.
Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 15:23 - 16:9.
- Professor Fisher testified that an entrant faced with incurring
significant sunk costs for an uncertain return "isn't going to
go in" because "it's going to have to battle the incumbent
and because it will have to give up these hostages to
fortune." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 50:18-25.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "competition between two
suppliers, each with very high fixed costs and very low marginal
costs, would likely result in a decrease in prices, further reducing
the profitability of entry to the would-be entrant. Entry into head-to-head operating system competition with Microsoft thus would
be time consuming, risky, and costly; profiting from such entry
would be at best very uncertain and long in coming." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 48.
27.2.2. Accordingly, in order to ensure the availability of a set of
applications comparable to that available for Windows, a potential rival would need to
induce a large number of ISVs to write to its operating system.
- Dean Schmalensee testified that the question is whether
"the ISV community, can be convinced to provide
applications programming for an alternative operating
system." Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 15:23 - 16:9.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that to "offer a product that a
significant number of consumers wish to have installed on
their PCs," vendors of alternative "operating systems would
have to create, or induce others to create, an extensive set
of compatible software applications. This would be not
merely expensive, but also very risky." Warren-Boulton Dir.
¶ 57.
27.2.3. The cost to an entrant of inducing ISVs to write
applications for their operating system exceeds the cost faced by Microsoft when it
induced ISVs to write applications for the DOS and/or Windows operating system
because Microsoft did not face a highly penetrated market dominated by a single
competitor.
- Professor Fisher testified: "After Microsoft's victory, the cost
of pursuading ISV's to build such a stock rather than write
for Windows has got to be much more substantial than it
was for Microsoft to persuade them in the first place."
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 53:22 - 54:1.
27.2.3.1. In deciding whether to write for a particular
operating system, an ISV will consider the return it expects from incurring sunk costs,
and that depends on the number of users it expects the operating system will have.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that it is not the return if
the firm succeeds that governs investment decisions,
but rather expected return, including the risk if the
venture fails. Warren-Boulton, 11/19/98pm, at 52:11 -
53:7, 70:2 - 71:10.
- Dean Schmalensee testified that "ISVs will not write
applications software for an operating system unless
they expect enough consumers to use that operating
system." Schmalensee Dir. ¶ 100; Schmalensee,
6/23/99pm, at 59:10-22 (same).
27.2.3.2. ISVs will not in large numbers expect that a niche
(or new) operating system will succeed in competing against Windows because ISVs
face a "collective action problem": a rival operating system cannot succeed without a
large number of applications, but no individual ISV can be assured that a sufficient
number of ISVs will write all the applications necessary for rival operating systems to
succeed. As a result, each individual ISV will continue to write first and foremost for
Windows because that is what it will expect its rivals to do; and other operating systems
will therefore be unable to gain appreciable share from Windows.
- Professor Fisher testified that for a new operating
system vendor to be successful, it "takes an awful lot
of people" writing applications. But in assembling this
critical mass, there "is a collective action problem.
That is, in deciding to write for a new system, each
ISV will not take into account the fact that his action"
will have "some influence on the success of the new
operating system." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 58:10-18.
- Tevanian testified, regarding Apple's inability to
persuade developers to write for the proposed
Rhapsody operating system: "Developers, including
Microsoft, told Apple that they were concerned that
Apple would not be able to obtain a critical mass of
application programs written to work with the new
Rhapsody APIs and that customers, accordingly,
would not buy computers containing the new
operating system." Tevanian Dir. ¶ 19.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton summarized developer
incentives: "If you think of it as a trojan horse, any
individual applications writer looks at the market for
operating systems, and he says, 'I'm writing to the PC
platform. 90, 95 percent of the people who are likely
to use my application are using Windows; and
therefore, it's worth it for me individually to make a
decision to use J/Direct.' On the other hand, if you
look at the interests of applications writers as a whole,
if they all do that, nobody will write in cross-platform
applications. So, it is a quandary. What is in the
interests of individual application writers to do may
not be in the interests of applications writers as a
group." Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 40:2-13.
- Microsoft's Steve Ballmer wrote in July 1997: "It's
important for us to keep developer focus. And market
share is an important part of that. If you don't have
good market share, you're going to lose developer
interest." GX 679, at 8.
- William Harris explained that, because of Microsoft's
dominant market share, Intuit had "abandoned
development of Macintosh-compatible versions of
QuickBooks and has dramatically reduced
development of Macintosh-compatible versions of
Quicken and TurboTax." Harris Dir. ¶¶ 25-26.
27.2.3.3. A rival operating system vendor cannot effectively
solve this problem by paying the necessary number of ISVs to write for its operating
system because the sunk costs of doing so are massive relative to the expected return.
- Professor Fisher testified that one "might pay ISVs to
write to your operating system. That in itself is part of
the barrier to entry, that you have to pay them to turn
away from Windows." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 55:23 -
56:1. He further testified that doing so in order to
challenge Windows was infeasible because of the
very collective action problem that prevents ISVs from
doing so on their own. He explained: "There is a
collective action problem. That is, in deciding to write
for a new system, each ISV will not take into account
the fact that his action will have something to do with
the success of . . .some influence on the success of
the new operating system, because he won't reap all
the rewards from that. It takes an awful lot of people
doing this to make it a go." Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 59:2-18.
- John Soyring testified that "Microsoft's enormous
installed base, along with the wealth of applications
and hardware device support for Windows, noted
above, makes it difficult for IBM or any other company
to successfully offer a new operating system for
desktop and mobile PCs. Any company that
attempted to do so would have to spend an enormous
amount of money and time on development,
marketing, and support." He further observed that
this "task would be easier if there were some
reasonable way to ensure that all the applications
now on Windows would run on the new product.
Unfortunately, there is not." Soyring Dir. ¶ 13.
- MCI's David Limp testified that "it would be hard to
get into the PC space" because: "There's a lot of
home-grown application development, which has
been written directly to Windows and Win--not to the
languages of the Web but Windows languages, that
unseating that is--you know, I tried it for eight years of
my life at Apple. It's just a very hard problem, and it
takes a lot of resources, and nobody has been
successful, so, I mean, just putting on your business
hat, you kind of veer to the easier problem, right?
And that's a hard problem. IBM couldn't do it. Sun is
having a tough time. Apple basically couldn't do it, so
it's an uphill battle and, and we chose to fight our
competition in an area that was more wide open that
we could define ourselves, that was--that we could
redefine the playing field." Limp Dep., 7/30/98, at
143:6-25 (DX 2576).
- James Gosling testified that "it's very difficult for a
developer to financially justify developing software for
a platform like Solaris which has very low volume.
The differential between Solaris and Windows is
something like a hundred to one, which would mean
the financial return would be about a hundred to one
different, and yet the engineering effort is about the
same." Gosling, 12/10/98pm, at 26:16 - 27:3.
(3) The persistence of Microsoft's huge market share
is itself evidence of high entry barriers
28. That Microsoft's monopoly is protected by high entry barriers is reflected in
the fact that, for the last several years, Microsoft has possessed a dominant share of
the market and other operating systems have gained no more than a trivial share of the
market.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "the applications barrier to entry sustains
Microsoft's dominance, critically contributes to its monopoly power, and
helps explain why other Intel-compatible operating systems, such as OS/2
and Linux, have persistently small market shares." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶
56.
(4) The testimony of Apple and IBM illustrates the
strength of the applications barrier to entry
29. The experience of Microsoft's most significant operating system rivals in the
middle and late 1990s, IBM and Apple, confirms the strength of the applications barrier
to entry.
30. IBM's inability to gain widespread developer support for its OS/2 Warp
operating system illustrates how the massive Windows installed base makes it
prohibitively costly for a rival operating systems to attract applications sufficient to
substitute for Windows.
30.1. IBM in 1994 introduced its Intel-based OS/2 Warp operating
system, targeted at the consumer market, and spent tens of millions of dollars in an
effort to attract ISVs and in an unsuccessful attempt to clone part of the Windows API
set.
- Soyring testified that IBM "spent tens of millions of dollars working
with ISV's around the world . . . to try to convince them to develop"
for OS/2. Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at 58:20 - 60:1, 66:19 - 67:8.
- Soyring further testified that IBM devoted substantial resources in
an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to clone part of the Windows
API set. Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at 61:15 - 62:1.
30.2. Despite these efforts, IBM could obtain neither significant market
share nor ISV support for OS/2 Warp.
- Soyring testified that, even when "it would have made economic
sense for an ISV to port their application to OS/2, many times they
felt those programmers could be better spent building new
functions or new applications for Windows because it provided a
potential for greater economic return for them" and because "of the
larger number of . . . Windows application users." Soyring,
11/18/98pm, at 67:11-24.
- As Soyring summarized, IBM found that it was caught "in a vicious
cycle. First, the limited number and type of OS/2 applications has
resulted in a limited demand for OS/2. That, in turn, has meant that
relatively few PCs are shipped with OS/2, and that the installed
base of OS/2 is relatively small. This relatively small installed base
of OS/2 installations has further reduced the incentive for
application developers to spend the resources necessary to port
their existing applications to OS/2 and to then offer and support
them on OS/2." Soyring Dir. ¶ 9.
- OEMs -- including IBM's PC business -- will not preinstall OS/2,
and the reason is the absence of applications. Romano Dep.
(played 12/16/98pm), at 33:4-19 (Hewlett Packard has "not
seriously" considered installing OS/2); Ransom Dep. (played
12/16/98pm), at 70:11 - 71:8 (OS/2 was "trying to make a push at
the consumer market. And the big problem with it is we needed
OS/2 plus Windows because OS/2 did not have the compatibility.
OS/2 was an operating system and worked fine on the systems,
but you needed Windows for the compatibility of all the applicants.
So it didn't make any sense resource-wise -- and by resource, I
don't mean just double charging, but the resources of the machine
to have two operating systems on it."); Romano Dep. (played
12/16/98pm), at 72:5-23 (because of the lack of applications
compatible with OS/2, it was not a viable choice for Packard Bell.).
30.3. Thus, although at its peak OS/2 ran approximately 2,500
applications and had 10% of the market, IBM determined that the applications barrier to
entry was too severe to compete against Windows in the consumer segment of the
market and, for that reason, in 1996 stopped trying to convince ISVs to write to OS/2.
- Soyring Dir. ¶ 5; Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at 61:2-4.
- Soyring testified that IBM determined that it "would not be able to
compete" against Windows because the "application barrier was
just too high for us to be able to compete" by promoting "OS/2
Warp 3 to consumer users." Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at 99:22 -
100:5. Thus, he explained, in 1996 IBM stopped trying to induce
developers to write for OS/2's APIs altogether because of it's
inability to compete against Windows. Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at
93:19-21.
- Dean Schmalensee agreed with Soyring's testimony that part of the
reason for OS/2's failure was that "IBM did not have a sufficient
number of applications to compete effectively with Microsoft."
Schmalensee, 1/14/99am, at 34:15-25.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that "IBM has found with OS/2 that it is
simply impossible to effectively compete with Microsoft in the home
computer market because of the problem that it doesn't have
enough applications." Warren-Boulton, 11/24/98am, at 53:5-8.
This competition between OS/2 and Windows illustrates the
operation of network effects, in which "the firm with the largest
market share becomes larger and the firm with the smaller market
share becomes smaller." Warren-Boulton, 11/24/98am, at 52:20-21.
30.4. Microsoft's contention that OS/2's failure was a consequence of
IBM's own mistakes is misplaced because it confuses the reasons for the failure of
early versions of OS/2 with the reason -- the applications barrier to entry -- that OS/2
Warp cannot gain substantial market share today.
- As Soyring testified, IBM rectified many of OS/2's problems by the
time of OS/2 Warp's release. Soyring explained that "the
reductions in size that we made in the operating system program
were such that it made it very competitive in terms of the amount of
memory that was required, so it turned out to be quite suitable, and
we had a fair amount of success initially selling the products at
least to a particular subset of the home users." Soyring
11/18/98pm, at 58:25 - 59:7.
- Microsoft suggested that OS/2 Warp failed because IBM didn't
spend enough to attract developers. Soyring, 11/18/98pm, at
92:20 - 93:1. This, however, is entirely consistent with the
applications barrier to entry. As Soyring testified, because of
Microsoft's installed base, the cost to IBM of attracting significant
developer interest was prohibitive. Soyring Dir. ¶ 13.
31. The inability of Apple effectively to compete with Windows also evidences
the operation of the applications barrier to entry.
31.1. Although Apple's Macintosh operating system supports more than
12,000 applications, that stock of applications is not sufficient to enable Apple to
substitute for Windows for a large number of users.
- Avadis Tevanian testified that "the predominant number of
applications in the market do not run on the Macintosh, and
because of that, most people will just refuse to buy a Macintosh.
They'll want safety in the applications that are on Windows. Or in
some cases they'll be required to run Windows. For example, in
almost every corporation in the world, they have to run some
specific applications that are only on Windows." Accordingly,
despite the fact that the iMac is selling well, "in the grand scheme
of things, there is still the Windows monopoly, that it's a situation
where people need to run Windows applications, and they buy
Windows computers." Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 11:21 - 12:13.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that there are approximately 12,000
applications available for users of the Macintosh operating system,
but that Apple cannot constrain Microsoft's ability to exercise
market power. Warren-Boulton, 11/23/99pm, at 16:7-13.
31.2. The absence of a large installed base, in turn, reinforces the
disparity between the applications available for the Macintosh operating system and
those available for Windows, further inhibiting Apple sales.
- Microsoft's Paul Maritz conceded that "fewer software developers
create products for the Apple Macintosh because there are fewer
Apple Macintosh customers to buy such products." Maritz Dir. ¶
179.
- Apple's Avadis Tevanian testified that an "application program is
condemned to commercial failure if it will not operate reliably on the
operating system of a sufficiently large installed base of computer
systems. Similarly, the commercial viability of an operating system
is critically dependent on the availability of application programs--including well-accepted, broadly-used application programs--that
are written for use on that system." Tevanian Dir. ¶ 15.
Consequently, "Apple has learned through experience" that "the
symbiosis between operating system[s] and application programs
creates significant barriers to the introduction and growth of
competing operating systems." Id. at ¶ 16.
31.3. Also illustrative is Apple's inability to gain developer support for its
Rhapsody operating system in 1997.
31.3.1. Rhapsody offered users new, attractive technologies; but
taking advantage of these technologies would have required ISVs substantially to
rewrite their applications, a process requiring a substantial investment and, therefore, a
significant volume of sales to recoup.
- Avie Tevanian testified that "the biggest reason" ISVs would
not write Rhapsody applications was that "they needed to
have an economic incentive, they needed to know that they
could sell a lot of copies of their applications; and to sell a lot
of copies of their applications, they needed to know that
there were going to be lots of copies of the operating
system, and they just didn't believe that Apple had any
chance of selling a lot of copies of this operating system."
Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 44:5-13.
31.3.2. Developers refused to make this investment because they
did not believe that Apple could gain significant volume against Windows to make the
additional sunk costs worthwhile.
- Tevanian testified that developers "didn't see that Apple
would ever get sufficient volume on Rhaspody so that they
thought they would have an economic return on their
investment." Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 83:20-23.
- Tevanian explained that the Windows installed base was the
reason why developers thought Apple "had no chance of
achieving any significant volume with a new operating
system." Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 85:19-23.
31.3.3. Other reasons may have contributed to Rhapsody's failure
-- Apple's financial difficulties and Microsoft's refusal to support its ability to work with
Windows NT -- do not detract from the illustration Rhapsody provides of the
applications barrier to entry.
- The very document Microsoft introduced in support of its
assertion that Apple's financial distress hurt Rhapsody
shows, in fact, developer concern as to whether Apple could
gain sufficient share to make their investment worthwhile.
DX 1769 ("For Developers, the ramp for Rhapsody is not
irrelevant."); see also Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 96:23 - 99:23.
- The force of the applications barrier to entry is demonstrated
by the steps Apple took following Rhapsody's initial failure.
Apple incorporated some of the Rhapsody technology into
its new Macintosh operating system in a way that did not
require ISVs significantly to rewrite their applications. As
Tevanian testified, this greatly reduced the costs to
developers of supporting Rhapsody because: "The
economic model for them is very simple. They just keep
their existing investment." Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 91:13-21. In short, ISVs are willing to develop for Apple when they
can recoup their past investments. But because of the
Windows installed base, they are generally unwilling to make
substantial investments required "to go into new areas."
Tevanian, 11/4/98pm, at 83:2-7.
c. Other entry barriers reinforce the applications barrier to
entry
32. Although the applications barrier to entry is an important factor that prevents
other operating systems from developing into reasonable substitutes for Windows, other
factors also inhibit the ability of other operating systems to enter or expand.
32.1. Switching costs. Switching to a new operating system requires
users of existing systems to scrap existing investments in applications, training, and
certain hardware.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that computer users "are reluctant to
switch from Windows to another operating system, even another
PC operating system, because to do so requires them to replace
application software, to convert files, and to learn how to operate
the new software. Often, switching also means replacing or
modifying hardware. Businesses can face even greater switching
costs, as they must integrate PCs using the new operating systems
and application software within their PC networks and train their
employees to use the new software." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 49; id.
¶ 36.
- James Gosling testified that a Windows user switching to the Apple
iMac would "have to buy every piece of software all over again."
Gosling, 12/10/98pm, at 19:15 - 20:1.
32.2. Other network effects. In addition to augmenting ISVs' incentives
to write for Windows, Microsoft's high market share increases the value of Windows in
other ways. These include, among other things, common file formats and low training
costs because of user familiarity.
- Professor Fisher testified that the ubiquity of Windows "may enable
firms to avoid training costs when personnel are moved within the
firm or new personnel are hired from outside. This gives firms an
incentive to have the same user interface throughout its own
computers and the same interface that is widely used by other
firms. Other network effects include the ease of exchanging files
and the opportunity to learn from others." Fisher Dir. ¶ 67.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified that switchers to another platform
would "need to expend time and money learning how to use a
computer designed for a different processor. And both switchers
and new users would have to bear costs resulting from any
incompatibility or impaired compatibility between their computer
and PCs used by colleagues or others with whom the users may
wish to communicate or share files." Warren-Boulton Dir. ¶ 17.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton also testified that the applications barrier to
entry "is supplemented by other barriers to entry that derive from
network effects. Books, publications, training, user groups, and
news groups for the incumbent operating system product provide a
large sense of community for its users. Users can exchange files,
and perhaps more readily use their computers to communicate,
with other members of the group. Finally, when the incumbent
operating system is installed at work, it leads users to select the
same operating system product for use at home." Warren-Boulton
Dir. ¶ 55.
- "It's important for them to be able to leverage one web browser
class -- for example, a training session -- among all the various
users of that browser, so that, to the extent it's possible, you want
the features of that browser to look and feel and act and work the
same, regardless of whether the employee is running a Unix work
station or an Intel-based PC." Weadock, 11/17/98am, 19:25 - 20:6
(discussing GX 217, at MS98 0109146) (corporations "want a
common platform for web apps, basic end user feature similarity,
simship, and it is the number one reason corps and ISPs wait or
don't go with IE as std. browser")
32.3. Sunk costs of developing an operating system. Like other software,
developing an operating system requires incurring significant sunk costs (although
actual production costs are low), and the significant sunk costs that must be incurred to
develop an operating system deter entry.
- Dr. Warren-Boulton testified: "If you build an operating system and
you fail, you can't take the OS and do much else with it. That
money is gone. And that makes it into a very risky business. And
economists generally recognize that the higher the share of costs
that are sunk, the greater the barrier to entry into that business,
which really makes good sense." Warren-Boulton, 12/1/98am, at
31:2 - 31:8.
C. Microsoft's ability to control the price of Windows evidences its
monopoly power
33. Microsoft's monopoly power is also evidenced by its ability to control the
price of its operating systems.
- Professor Fisher testified that a firm's "substantial ability to vary, and,
indeed, to raise" price "without fearing that its customers will turn
elsewhere" can be evidence monopoly power. Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 11:14
- 12:17.
1. Microsoft does not consider rival operating systems in pricing
Windows 95 or Windows 98
34. Microsoft does not consider competitors in setting the price for Windows 98,
and Microsoft does not fear that increasing the price of Windows will cause its
customers to turn elsewhere.
- See supra Part II.A; ¶ 15.1.5.
2. Microsoft raised the prices of obsolete versions of Windows
35. Microsoft's substantial pricing discretion is also demonstrated by its ability to
increase the royalty for older versions of Windows, versions that Microsoft
characterized as "obsolete," following the release of new versions.
a. Microsoft increased the Windows 95 price when it
released Windows 98
36. Following the release of Windows 98, Microsoft,
increased the price of Windows 95 to the same level as Windows 98.
- Professor Fisher testified that
- redacted -
Fisher, 1/12/99pm, at 47:2-9 (sealed session).
- Dean Schmalensee acknowledged that Microsoft
- redacted - Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 51:25 - 52:12 (sealed session);
Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 44:22 - 45:9
(sealed session).
- Current OEM licenses list royalties for
- redacted -
See e.g., GX 461 at MS98 0009500 (IBM license) (sealed); GX
1190 at MS98 0008922 (Compaq license) (sealed). See also
Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, 51:25 - 52:7
- redacted -
(sealed session).
- The average actual price of a Windows 95 standard license
- redacted -
GX 1404
(chart of prices sponsored by Professor Fisher) (sealed); DX 2330
(chart of license dates sponsored by Dean Schmalensee) (admitted
in sealed session).
36.1. Microsoft's increase of the Windows 95 royalty to the same level as
the Windows 98 royalty is not consistent with a competitive market.
- Microsoft witnesses repeatedly asserted that
- redacted -
Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 15:6-18
- redacted - (sealed session); Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 26:14
- redacted -
; id. at 30:9-31:11 (same) (sealed session).
-
- redacted -
Fisher, 1/12/99pm, at 45:16-22 (sealed
session).
- redacted - Fisher, 1/12/99pm, at 46:21-22 (sealed session). If
operating systems "were a competitive market, and Microsoft didn't have
some power over price, then when the better product came out,
you would expect to see the price of the older product at least stay
the same and, quite possibly, go down, but it didn't. It went up."
Fisher, 1/11/99pm, at 43:9-13.
36.1.1. Dean Schmalensee's testimony that
- redacted - (Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 27:9-11 (sealed session)) is
wrong, and he ultimately acknowledged that he did not investigate whether
- Professor Fisher presented a chart showing that
- redacted - GX 1404 (sealed); Fisher, 1/11/99am, at 19:18-22
(sealed session). These figures included
- redacted - Fisher, 1/12/99pm, at 46:16-25
(sealed session)
- Dean Schmalensee presented no evidence comparing
- redacted - Indeed he conceded
- redacted - Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 49:21 - 51:24 (sealed session).
- Instead, Dean Schmalensee presented a chart showing
- redacted - Schmalensee, 1/25/99am,
at 31:18 - 32:7 (sealed session); DX 2332 (admitted in sealed
session).
- Dean Schmalensee also asserted that "Microsoft did not in fact
increase prices for Windows 95/98 after December 1997."
Schmalensee Dir. ¶ 164. But he himself introduced a chart
showing
- redacted - DX 2330 (sealed).
- redacted - ; e.g., GX 1190, at
MS98 000892, MS98 0008930
(sealed); compare GX 449, at MSV 0002629 (1995
- redacted - (sealed). Dean Schmalensee appeared to ground his
erroneous assertion on the fact that
- redacted - (Schmalensee, 1/25/99am, at 50:3-9)
(sealed session);
- redacted - Dean
Schmalensee conceded he did not investigate whether
- redacted - Id. at
54:21 - 55:4.
b. Microsoft used the threat of withholding discounts on
Windows 95 to double the price charged IBM for
Windows 3.1 following the release of Windows 95
37. Similarly evidencing substantial and durable market power over operating
systems for Intel-compatible personal computers is Microsoft's threat to withhold
substantial discounts for Windows 95 in order to force IBM to accept a doubling of its
royalty for Windows 3.11.
37.1. Microsoft put IBM to the choice of abandoning its favorable royalty
for Windows 3.11 or sacrificing commercially crucial MDA discounts for Windows 95.
- Garry Norris testified that IBM, in part because of its assistance in
developing the product, enjoyed a $9 royalty for Windows 3.11.
Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 8:18-23, 12:8-18; 6/8/99am, at 81:23 - 82:19;
GX 2194, at 90353. IBM's contract with Microsoft guaranteed IBM
that rate until September 1997. Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 8:18-23.
- In April 1996, Norris testified, Microsoft proposed to IBM what
Microsoft termed its "Windows desktop family agreement." Norris,
6/7/99pm, at 14:13 - 15:4. The proposed agreement consisted of
a single contract covering a number of Microsoft operating system
products, including Windows 95, Windows 3.11, and Windows NT.
Through this agreement, Microsoft conditioned substantial
discounts to Windows 95, and a license to Microsoft's newest
version of Windows NT, on IBM abandoning its favorable rate for
Windows 3.11 and accepting a much higher rate (initially proposed
at $62). Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 8:13 - 9:16, 13:16 - 14:4. IBM could
sign a Windows 95 license without giving up its favorable Windows
3.11 rate, but if it did, Microsoft would withhold MDA discounts on
Windows 95 amounting to $75 million a year. Norris, 6/7/99pm, at
9:4-9, 10:21-25.
37.1.1. Microsoft sought to raise IBM's Windows 3.11 royalty, and
thereby to migrate its installed base to Windows 95, in order to ensure Microsoft's
continued market dominance.
- Norris testified that Microsoft told IBM that it conditioned discounts
vital to the IBM PC Company's business on IBM abandoning its
favorable rate for Windows 3.11 because Microsoft "wanted more
customers to move to Windows 95, and more customers to move to
Windows NT." Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 12:1-7, 39:20 - 40:2.
- As Dr. Warren-Boulton testified, one way Microsoft reinforces the
applications barrier to entry is to "migrate" its "installed base" of
users -- those already using Windows operating systems -- to
newer versions of its operating system. Increasing the number of
Windows 95 users increases the incentives of ISVs to develop for
Windows 95, thus reinforcing the applications barrier to entry.
Warren-Boulton, 11/23/98pm, at 75:13 - 77:7.
37.1.2. Microsoft also told IBM that, even if it signed the agreement
Microsoft proposed, it would not get as good a deal as IBM's rival, Compaq, because
IBM (unlike Compaq) competed against Microsoft.
- See infra Part V.C.2.b(3); ¶ 209.2.1.
37.1.3. IBM ultimately acquiesced in Microsoft's demands and gave up its
$9 royalty for Windows 3.11 because it lacked any viable commercial alternative to
Windows 95 and the discounts Microsoft threatened to withhold were necessary in
order for IBM to compete against OEM rivals.
- Norris testified that IBM gave in to Microsoft's demands because
IBM "did not have a choice. We had no place else to go. We had
to have Windows 95 in order to be in the PC business," and
Microsoft was threatening to increase IBM's costs "by $75 million" a
year. Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 13:9-25, 40:3-15 (same).
- Norris further testified that a Microsoft account manager told IBM
that accepting these terms was the "Cost of doing business with
Microsoft." GX 2186; Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 74:20 - 75:10.
37.1.4. Although IBM was able to negotiate the originally offered $62
royalty Microsoft proposed for Windows 3.11 down to an effective royalty of
approximately $19.50, Microsoft's threatened withholding of $75 million in MDA
discounts, and its ability to increase the price charged IBM for its inferior Windows 3.11,
demonstrate substantial market power.
37.1.4.1. IBM's assent to Microsoft's demands demonstrates that
Microsoft possesses substantial pricing discretion with respect to Windows 95.
Microsoft threatened to withhold $75 million in discounts to IBM without concern that
IBM would shift its business to another operating system vendor or that charging a high
price to IBM would hasten the day when a viable alternative to Windows would arise.
- Professor Fisher testified that Microsoft's monopoly power is
evidenced by the fact that its "customers do not believe that
they have serious commercial alternatives to Windows."
Fisher, 6/1/99am, at 11:9-19.
37.1.4.2. The price IBM paid for Windows 3.11 would have
increased even more had IBM not kept its shipments of Windows 3.11 below 8% of all
Microsoft operating systems that it shipped. Microsoft's ability to change the Windows
3.11 royalty depending on the extent to which IBM facilitated Microsoft's objective of
moving users to Windows 95 is further evidence of monopoly power.
- GX 2186 (document discussing IBM's royalty payments to
Microsoft states as "Special Condition one" that "If win 3.11
vol. <8% of total volume for the contract period IBM receives
rebate of $5m + $6 per copy of all win 3.11 shipments").
- Garry Norris testified that there was a two-part agreement
under which "Microsoft offered IBM an incentive, and the
incentive was that if IBM's shipments of Windows 3.11 fell
below eight percent of its total Microsoft operating
shipments, Microsoft would rebate to IBM 5 million U.S.
dollars, which had been agreed upon in a previous
settlement agreement in 1995. The second aspect of that
was that after shipments did, in fact, fall below eight percent,
then the price for Windows 3.11 would receive an additional
$6 rebate." Norris, 6/7/99pm, at 37:10-20; see also Norris,
6/9/99pm, at 48:9 - 49:5 (same).
3. Other aspects of Microsoft's pricing of Windows are
consistent with monopoly power
38. Other aspects of Microsoft's pricing of Windows are consistent with
Microsoft's possession of monopoly power.
38.1. The increasing price of Windows. In contrast to other components
of a personal computer (where prices have substantially decreased), the price of
Windows has increased in both absolute and relative terms in the past several years.
38.1.1. The price OEMs pay for Microsoft's operating systems has
risen in absolute terms in the past several years.
- Professor Fisher testified that he has "looked at what's
happened to Microsoft's operating system price over time,
and it isn't falling, and I don't believe it's falling even on a
quality corrected basis. And for that matter, it isn't even
constant. It's rising." Fisher, 1/11/99pm, at 41:24 - 42:3;
see also GX 1404 (sealed) (chart sponsored by Professor
Fisher showing
- The royalty
- redacted - Rose, 2/17/99pm, at 30:9-18 (sealed
session).
-
- redacted - GX 1430 (sealed).
-
- redacted - See supra Part
II.C.2.a; ¶ 32.
- Kempin acknowledged that
- redacted - Kempin, 2/25/99pm,
126:5 -128:13 (sealed session); GX 1506 (sealed); GX 1508
(sealed).
38.1.2. The price OEMs pay for Microsoft's operating systems has
risen in relative terms in the past several years.
- Kempin wrote to Gates in December 1997 that the price of
Microsoft's operating systems to OEMs has increased "over
the last ten years" while "other components" of PC systems
"have come down and continue[] to come down." GX 365,
at MS7 007194.
- See Romano Dep. (played 12/16/98pm), at 33:20 - 34:21
(testifying that the prices of all components of the PC have
decreased except the operating system, the price of which
has increased); Warren-Boulton, 12/1/98am, at 26:16 - 30:9;
GX 439 (Microsoft chart demonstrating price increase); GX
1430 (chart based on GX 439) (sealed); Warren-Boulton Dir.
¶ 61.
- Compare Schmalensee, 6/23/99am, at 14:15 (testifying that
"hardware costs are falling") with DX 2301 (admitted in
sealed session) (chart sponsored by Dean Schmalensee
showing
38.1.3. Although Dean Schmalensee asserted that
- redacted - + (Schmalensee, 1/25/99am,
at 11:11 - 15:18) (sealed session), that assertion is not supported by the evidence:
- Microsoft, as explained, raised the price of Windows 95 to
the same level as Windows 98. But Microsoft did not at the
same time increase the quality of Windows 95. See supra
Part II.C.2.a; ¶ 36.1.
- As Professor Fisher testified, this relative increase in the
price of Windows "ought to at least make one suspicious" of
Microsoft's assertion that its price increases merely reflects
adjustments for increased product quality. Fisher,
1/11/99pm, at 43:14-23; Fisher, 1/13/99am, at 39:13 - 41:9.
- See supra ¶ 38.1.2 (price of operating system has increased
relative to other components of PC system).
38.2. Microsoft's pricing of its Windows 98 upgrade. Microsoft's pricing
of its Windows 98 upgrade also is consistent with Microsoft's possession of monopoly
power.
38.2.1. The evidence shows that Microsoft had substantial
discretion in setting the price of its Windows 98 upgrade product, the operating system
product it sells to existing users of Windows 95.
- A contemporaneous Microsoft study shows that it could
have charged $49 for the product -- and there is no reason
to believe that price would have been unprofitable -- but
concluded it could earn greater profits by charging $89.
Warren-Boulton, 12/1/98am, at 24:8 - 25:13; GX 1371, at
MS7 003730, MS7 003748.
- The existence of a range of prices over which Microsoft
believed it could profitably sell its upgrade product is, at a
minimum, consistent with its possession of substantial
market power. Warren-Boulton, 12/1/98am, at 24:8 - 25:13.
38.3. Microsoft's ability to price discriminate. Microsoft's sustained ability
to price discriminate is probative of market power and, therefore, consistent with
monopoly power.
38.3.1. Price discrimination is probative of the existence of market
power and, therefore, is consistent with monopoly power.
- Price discrimination is the practice of setting different prices
for the same product to different customers. Schmalensee,
1/21/99am, 30:11-16. Dean Schmalensee testified that he
continues to agree with his statement in his 1982 article from
the Harvard Law Review, that it is "a standard textbook
proposition that for a seller to practice price discrimination
profitably, it must have s
|