Interoperability and market foreclosure in the European Microsoft case

Kai-Uwe Kuhn () and John van Reenen

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In this paper we discuss some of the most important economic issues raised in European Commission vs. Microsoft (2004) concerning the market for work group servers. In our view, the most important economic issues relate to (a) foreclosure incentives and (b) innovation effects of the proposed remedy. We discuss the economic basis for the Commission’s claims that Microsoft had incentives to exclude rivals in the work group server market through degrading the interoperability of their server operating systems with Windows. We also examine the impact of compulsory disclosure of information on interoperability and argue that the effects on innovation are not unambiguously negative as Microsoft claim. We conclude with some general implications of the case for anti-trust enforcement in high innovation sectors.

Keywords: leverage; interoperability; abuse of a dominant position; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L4 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2008-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4664/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Interoperability and Market Foreclosure In the European Microsoft Case (2008)
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