There's plenty of questionable business practices that Microsoft could probably be slapped on the wrist for of anyone cares, but I'm not actually sure there's a good antitrust claim that could lead to a breakup there.
There's always bundling a web browser with their OS and giving it an unfair advantage over all other browsers, aka the exact thing they were sued for last time.
ChromeOS bundles its own browser and goes even further in preventing people from installing their own than Windows. Imagine if on the first boot of ChromeOS it asks if you want to use Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox.
There's a small difference in that Windows clims to be a general purpose operating system and Chrome OS is exactly what it says on the tin, but also a Chromebook running Firefox would be pretty great.
That lawsuit SAS honestly complete bullshit. Going after Microsoft for having plentiful stolen their browser would have been one thing, but saying an OS couldn't ship software applications out of the box is crazy. What do you find when booting up an OS for the first time? Am empty desktop and no way to install anything?
What apple has done with browsers at least seems more egregious. Windows didn't stop you from installing a different browser, ios does. There was even a long running joke that the only good use for IE was to install a real browser.
It wouldn't be hard to find a reason to sure Microsoft though. Take a look someone at where the legal text states their software builds were made and ask what tax benefits one might get from running production builds on servers in the Caribbean.
reply