Bias Opinion To Microsoft example essay topic

Microsoft has an extremely large market share in the personal operating system market. To some extent, Microsoft is a typical sample of monopoly. Jeffrey A. Eisenach and Thomas M. Lenard, in their article "The Microsoft Monopoly: The facts, the law and the remedy" (2000), assert that Microsoft has a monopoly, has engaged in anticompetitive behaviors, has harmed consumers and violated the law. They analysis the factual evidence and conclude two remedies which would solve this problem and best serve consumers. The objective of this article is to inform the reader that how harmful Microsoft monopoly is, and how necessary to change this situation as soon as possible.

Although Jeffrey A. Eisenach and Thomas M. Lenard's article is well organized, interesting and thought provoking, it seems that there is a bias against Microsoft, overuse other scholar's opinions, some points of view lack evidences. This essay will present a summary of the article and discuss the positive and negative characteristics. To begin with, authors introduce a Microsoft antitrust case and a debate between Judge Jackson and Microsoft's defenders. In the following, they respectively analyze "the facts", "the law" and "the remedy" of this case. In the part of "the facts", authors quote Judge Jackson's "three facts" to help audiences understand how Microsoft monopolies the software market and why it has harmed consumers. Next, in the part of "the law", they introduce Judge Jackson's conclusion of the law and damn to Microsoft's conduct.

After that, authors give two possible solutions respectively named conduct remedies and structural remedies. At the same time, they explain how do these two remedies work and rebut Microsoft defenders' opposite arguments. Finally, authors conclude that they prefer the structural remedy, because it would end the Microsoft monopoly, end the threat of government regulation and obviate the need for further litigation. There are both positive and negative characteristics in the article. The two positive characteristics are outlined below. The first positive characteristic is that the article is interesting and thought provoking.

In today's society, almost every modern person has access to personal computers. People can not use computers without Windows, without Microsoft. So, readers should very familiar with this topic and interest in it. In addition, authors provide some classical cases that Microsoft uses their monopoly power threats other companies, such as Netscape, Intel, IBM, Compaq etc., which are all famous companies in the IT realm and act very important roles in our everyday life. Reader would be astonished if they heard about these giant companies all use to be threatened by Microsoft. Also these examples will make the audiences think more about Microsoft monopoly.

The other positive characteristic is that the article is well organized. In the article, authors offer a detailed explanation and examples for each sub topic, which is divided distinctively, and each section is finished with a short summary. As a consequence, readers can easily follow the article and understand the content. On the other hand, it is obvious that the article has some negative characteristics. The first weakness is that authors use too much reliance on other scholars' opinions. By statistics, authors use Judge Jackson's opinions more than twenty times and they have not used anyone else's opinion even once.

Jackson, who was the Judge in charge of the Microsoft anti-trust case but had been rejected by the US government duo to he had bias opinions to Microsoft. As a result, it will make their viewpoints questionable and lead their article not convincing enough. The second negative characteristic is that authors have a bias against Microsoft. In the article authors describe Microsoft as a big monster, times and times repeat the negative effects of Microsoft monopoly, but they never mentioned the positive side of it. In fact, Microsoft has brought us not only good products, but also the standardization and the compatibility. "Technology needs leaders to define a market so that others can invest".

(Dick Satran 2000) Choosing the operating system which is the market leader makes it cause your data and programs compatible with other users. For example, consumers using Windows will never worried about the "Word" files in their computers can not be read in others computers. Another benefit is that a larger installed base means there will be many more application programs available for that system. Authors have not mentioned these facts in their article; obviously, they have a bias opinion to Microsoft. The final negative characteristic in this article is lack of evidences. In their article, authors assert that, compare with AT&T, Microsoft is much easier to separate, because the employees work for Microsoft is mostly young, mobile and well-off (see "The Remedy" part).

In fact, there is no evidence or statistic shows the employees in Microsoft are younger, more mobile or more well-off than the employees in AT&T. In addition, we can not find the relationship between the employees structure and how easy the company be divided. It will confuse the readers if authors do not explain this point. In conclusion, as can be seen, this article is interesting, thought-provoking and well-organized. However, despite these positive characteristics, authors use too much reliance on other scholars' opinion, have bias against Microsoft and do not provide enough evidences in support of their some viewpoints.

It is recommended that more research is needed before definite conclusion. In particular, authors should do their research in a more careful and responsible manner, analyze things in a objective and fair way, especially do not have a bias opinion in their article. REFERENCE Dick Satran (2000) "Life after Microsoft-Do 20th-century laws work in the 21st-century economy?" UTS Library Database Available at: web Accessed: 09.08. 2002 Jeffrey A. Eisenach and Thomas M. Lenard, (2000). "THE MICROSOFT MONOPOLY: THE FACTS, THE LAW AND THE REMEDY" Available at: web Accessed: 23.09. 2002.