Is Microsoft's Monopoly Position in the Public Interest?

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Economy - Theory of Competition, Competition Policy, grade: B, University of Manchester, language: English, abstract: [...] In the 1980's Microsoft required its OEM's (original equipment manufacturers) to pay a 'per processor license fee' for the computers that they shipped and this discouraged those OEM's such as HP and Dell to install any other operating systems. In 1994 an antitrust suit was filed against Microsoft as the arrangement method that they followed seemed to be anticompetitive. Although Microsoft agreed to not use the 'per processor license fee', they had already gained a large advantage over their competitors. In the 1990's as IBM was an OEM and also made operating systems and other application software's they were considered by Microsoft to be a competitor and a possible threat. Thus Microsoft, in a discriminatory fashion, charged IBM higher license prices for its operating systems and withheld technical support from them. IBM later filed a suit against Microsoft and they settled the claim, but Microsoft had again, already gained the upper hand [...]