Like all antitrust lawyers, Rule acknowledged that antitrust law forbids monopolists from using a monopoly in one market to attempt to gain a monopoly in another market. Gaining another monopoly for its own sake isn't what his client is after, Rule said. Since Microsoft has a 95 percent market share in PC operating systems, attorneys general take it as a given that Judge Jackson will find the company is, in fact, a monopoly. Nonetheless, legal ambiguities in the case assure years of wrangling. Papers filed in District Court never suggested that Microsoft did anything to obtain its operating system illegally.
Antitrust law holds monopolies to a higher standard than ordinary companies.
Since ordinary market forces do not affect monopolists, antitrust law holds, they can't be allowed the same leeway in the marketplace for fear of extinguishing competition. The antitrust enforcers made a series of claims, among them that Microsoft broke the law when it allegedly tried to persuade Netscape Communications Corp. to carve up the browser market in a secret meeting held between the two sides in 1995. Attorneys general asked the court to order the company to stop including Internet browsing software with its Windows operating systems or include similar software from Netscape. They also asked the court to ban Microsoft from enforcing the contracts cited in the complaint. The way the attorneys general tell it, their case is unassailable.