2005 Instituto Juan de Mariana
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2006/04/23 - Gabriel Calzada - Libertad Digital

Bill Gates’ Crime

In 2004 the European Commission fined Microsoft €497 million and forced it to undertake a variety of business actions. To date, it is the largest penalty imposed on a company in Europe for “monopolistic practices”.
The US computer giant’s crime consisted of integrating an audio-visual program into its Windows operating system and selling them together. This was the infraction, but it could have been anything. This is how things go in the Anti-Trust Kingdom.  
 
The real motive lies in the Redmond, Washington company’s refusal to stop competing with its competitors, even though it is the biggest in the market. In short, it isn’t resting on its laurels. It hasn’t forgotten consumers are demanding; that they constantly change their ideas about how a product should be; and that if a company wants to remain the industry leader it must continually satisfy them.   
 
The members of the European Commission have such arbitrary power they can condemn whoever they feel like for monopolistic practices. This time it was for integrating products, but it could easily have been for reducing or increasing the sale price. And it was Microsoft, but it could have been Coca-Cola or any other company that managed to irritate the sensitive nature of a commissioner in power. Anti-trust policies are based on such a surreal theory of perfect competition that every truly competitive act can be considered an attack against the market and consumer. As expected, incorporating new functions that could already be bought separately was not going to escape the notice of those who think only they, not consumers or companies, decide the future of industry.   
 
Blaming a company for expanding the possibilities of its product to fit with what society is demanding, is costing consumers of Microsoft products, computer goods and services and society in general a pretty penny: €497 million in fines, €600 million in legal defense expenses and more for making the changes in production demanded by the Commission, but which mean lower quality products and slower innovation.   
 
The first major international conference examining on the perverse effects our interventionist anti-trust laws have on innovation was held last week in Brussels. Among those in attendance were an important number of members from the European Parliament and the Commission. These central planners brought the surprise of the conference, who attended wearing suits with integrated buttons, glasses with integrated frames and watches with straps made by the same company, brand name shoes sold together with soles and laces, cellular phones with cameras and calendars, and official cars with radios, wheels, tinted windows and GPS systems all integrated. It appears these free market destroyers, these perfect “monopolizers” of decisions as to how companies should compete, are not willing to give up the benefits of integration they deny the millions of Europeans who prefer Windows with Media Player.


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