Over six billion dollars spent producing one of the worlds’ largest technological projects in history; Windows Vista. In 2007, Microsoft finally launched their new operating system years behind their proposed schedule and billions over budget. This essay will cover aspects over Microsofts arrangements with the development and sale of Windows vista in a monopolist market and the effects it would have if it was in a competitive market, discuss why PC’s are in a more competitive market compared to operating systems and diminishing profit of the ogolisitic market computer chip giants; AMD and Intel created.
Being a monopoly, Microsoft is turning over a huge profit from retailers buying Windows Vista for a wholesale cost and marking the price up to make a profit, even though the time producing the newest software wasn’t managed efficiently, as it was years overdue. Microsoft created a monopolist market which is when “a firm is a sole seller of a product without close subsitutes” (Principles of Economics, Joshua Gans, Steven King, Robin Stonecash, N. Gregory Mankiw, 2012) and created a highly efficient arrangement for the sale of their software, as shown by the 20 million Vista licences sold within the first month of sale ( Windows Vista Debuts with Strong Global Sales, Microsoft, 2007). Although, by selling their product to a large number of firms, from small businesses, to major franchises. This means that there is a perfectly competitive market trying to sell the most copies. By allowing more firms to resell Vista, Microsoft will set itself up for higher short term profits, but less long term profits, due to firms competing with each other, lowering the price they are selling the software for. As more firms are selling this product...
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... billions over budget, and years behind. Due to Microsoft being a monopoly, it created such a change in the market with the introduction of its new software that an upgrade of hardware was needed to for computers to function correctly, causing increases in cost of producing PC’s. As such, this may cause decreased profits for firms selling these new computers, demonstrating how one change in an environment can cause drastic changes in all related markets.
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While the Microsoft Empire maintains its status as a vast company of large-scale production, readily contributing to the national GDP, and yielding high interest and profits to its associates, criticism and controversial accusations keep mounting. The thought of a monopoly as the economic device for good business seems almost mind-boggling to Microsoft’s competing corporations, as well as the entire economic community, legal and commercial.
The standardized quality of MS Windows98 has really made the PC market as a whole take a rocket boost from the past. Most people who oppose this stance would say that standardizing a product wouldn’t cause anything but a monopoly. This is fiction because people choose products that are simply reliable and of good quality. The success of Microsoft’s operating system hasn’t been used to cause a monopoly in the browser marker, but to increase the quality of their software. A statement from Bill Gates on the 7th of December stating “ I am proud of the work our people have done to bring the benefits of the Internet to consumers, and I am confident that the courts ultimately will uphold the importance of the freedom to innovate.” The intensity of the Internet lies in it openness, freedom and incredible reach. It is physically impossible for any individual or company to be its controlling switch, as the number of Internet users continue to grow by easy access due to Internet technologies being added to quality operating systems such as Windows. Internet user will constantly demand high quality and maximum choice, and will travel to wherever they receive the best value for the money and time. As consumer interest in the Internet continues to grow, Microsoft’s role will be what it always has been. Aimed to provide the software building blocks for a rich computing experience and to build into that software all of the open Internet standards, protocols and platforms services which enable developers to write great applications. Even though Microsoft has included Internet capabilities in its Windows operating system since the launch of Windows 95, the Windows platform also provides excellent support for other leading browsers besides Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer.
Windows and Office continue to supply most of Microsoft¡¦s profit. But that profit is being squeezed as more and more companies are using Linux servers and even Linux desktops. For example, China is developing its own OS (Operating System) and planning to use for the whole country (their intention is to keep Microsoft away from the country). The company has been forced to slash prices for some key customers to avoid large scale defections, which leads to difficulties to locate the right price because high price may reduce the market share, but low price to compete against open source may reduce its core revenue.
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Microsoft was able in the OS segment to double their revenue per PC when Windows 3.x emerged which still needed MS-DOS to run. Most of the sales Microsoft made were to OEMs who would take the additional step of installing Windows on a computer’s hard drive. This strategy was effective in that the cost of production was relatively low, as an OEM may only need a single master copy to do the installation. The costs to Microsoft would largely be bore in R&D expense rather than production. As part of the Microsoft business model for this segment, Microsoft designed their OS to need periodic upgrades. The upgrades did come at a cost, and in essence, Microsoft was able to create an “annuity” stream for the Microsoft OS segment. In this segment, Microsoft had a monopolistic structure that allowed them to realize huge returns, especially during such a period of technological growth and rapid obsol...
Microsoft is dominating the market for years and it is the company that made its competitors almost unable to survive by offering great pieces of technology at affordable price. Today, it produces 75 percent of world’s PC’s. There are other monopolies that exists as well, for example; Wham-O owns over 90 percent of world’s frisbees. Nobody can compete against Wham-O since they basically control the whole frisbees’ industry. Another enormous monopoly is Google Inc., an international corporation that provides internet-related products and services. The industry includes everything from Android, Google Chrome, to Google Docs. Everyone, either students, or workers uses google every day to check emails, surf the web, type a document, etc. Google has couple competitors today but, because of the variety of products and services it offers, other firms can’t compete with Google.
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As mentioned earlier, besides developing operating systems, today Microsoft is involved in production of variety different things. It produces variety of different software for desktops and servers, it also stood up to one of its rivals “Google” by developing “Bing” internet search engine. On other hand Microsoft also became very successful in video game industry by developing Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles. Recently company started producing Windows Phone OS in a deal with Nokia, which almost led to Microsoft buying Nokia. Besides all that company’s newest addition is Microsoft Surface tablet computers. Even though Microsoft is very successful in new developing new projects, there have been times when corporation’s reputation was strongly shaken.
The intent of this paper is to provide a background of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system development, including when it was developed, how the development process was management, what needs this specific operating systems was developed to respond to in the Information Technologies market. This paper will also analyze the correlation of Information Technologies and Microsoft's Windows Vista position.
...ncome and increase in demand. Microsoft met another challenge from the rapid rate of new technology. Specially coming from competitor such as Apple, Google, IBM, AT&T corporation, and cable giant media ONE. The Internet also allowed for new growth, because companies can get their message out in second anywhere in the world. However, the management of Microsoft was able to fully utilize the skills, expertise, and wisdom of its employees to remain successful. Microsoft continues to be successful with its creativity and innovation by producing new product such as windows and Xbox. Management has shown diversity by employing 91000 people worldwide in over two-hundred countries. This cultural success has propelled Microsoft to the front of the technology world. This can be attributed to the efficiency and effectiveness.
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