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by nkassis 5157 days ago
I don't think you need a certain percentage of a market for this to start becoming a antitrust issue. And it could be argued that they have a strong monopoly on Tablets at this time.

If this doesn't feel like anticompetitive behaviour, I don't know what does. They are using their rather large position in the smartphone/tablet market to enter another market (in this case storage) and snuff out the competition. And there are other examples.
4 comments
bilbo0s 5157 days ago
Hmm...

Be careful what you wish for. If antitrust laws can be applied even when there is no monopoly, indeed, not even a majority market share, you are basically giving the government a green light to do a WHOLE lot of bad things.

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FreakLegion 5157 days ago
Antitrust laws regulate anti-competitive behavior. Coercive monopolies are simply one of the forms this behavior may take. It's possible to run afoul of antitrust laws without having a monopoly, and it's also possible to have a monopoly without running afoul of antitrust laws.
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jahewson 5157 days ago
Anti-trust covers attempts to gain monopolies too (though I don't think Apple are in violation of either, as mentioned above).
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jahewson 5157 days ago
Anti-trust law (where "trust" is an antiquated term for "cartel") is all about preventing multiple companies from conspiring to price-fix or monopolise a specific market via non-compete agreements and the like. For example Microsoft's famous agreements with OEMs to bundle IE and not Netscape. Having a monopoly is no sin, and Apple are no more obliged to sell non-Apple software for their phones as they are to sell non-Apple hardware in their stores.
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twidlit 5157 days ago
Its not anti trust because developers can switch to android or wp7. There are no unmoveable market forces that will deem switching as market suicide, in other words there is no monopoly.
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el_presidente 5157 days ago
If it were so easy to switch, why wouldn't developers target all the platforms? It isn't market suicide, but it's not as easy as recompiling the code either.
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rimantas 5156 days ago
Sorry, but this sounds a bit like "hey, they actually have a tablet worth something, let's punish them for that".
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