r all of the points listed above are true, the ethical issue then becomes whether the government is acting in the interests of the American consumer when it sued Microsoft in 1998 for antitrust violations. The issue that the government raised in 1998 was that Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world-wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. The government argued that every year for the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above ninety percent, and for two years the figure has been at least 95 percent. More importantly, the government asserted that Microsoft committed antitrust violations to achieve its market share.
The legal issues that Microsoft faced in the federal trial that began in 1998 have been or are being repeated elsewhere around the world. The most well publicized antitrust case involving Microsoft as a defendant outside of the United States is in Europe. The European Economic Community (the EU) filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft. The suit alleges that members nations in the EU were harmed by Microsoft's efforts to dominate the operating software business by using the company's market power to force competitors out of business.
As demonstrated by the aggressive defense that Microsoft has mounted against the U.S. Justice Department and the twenty states that joined with the government in filing this lawsuit, Microsoft's corporate culture could be characterized as confrontational. This is a corporation accustomed to winning. In is a company in which executive management refuses to acknowledge even the possibility that its actions were or are illegal. Microsoft's CEO Bill Gates remained steadfast, despite weeks of testimony, that he and his company did nothing that violated the terms of the 1994 consent decree -- and that Microsoft is a good corporate citizen that does not use its size to intimida...