My notion about monopolization. Quoted from standard Oxford dictionary, the word 'Monopoly' means complete control of trade in particular goods or services, or complete possession or use of something; a thing that belongs only to one person or group and that other people cannot share.
I do not see that Apple iPod music player and the iTunes internet music store are monopolizing the Music Player market and its fixed price strategy to offer all songs at the same price per song or whatever price they like in individual country worldwide are price rigging with music labels.
First of all, no one is putting a gun in your head and forcing you to buy such product and service from Apple. If you think Apple is greedy and is charging you ludicrously, you can choose other products from other brands such as Sony, Creative, Sandisk, etc. If you think that the iTunes internet music store is not offering you a decent service at such pricing, you can go to other internet music stores or to any bricks and mortar music store to buy your CDs. In all normal commercial trading activities as such, no company could be labeled as Monopoly even if its products/services retain over 99.99% of market share (in here, I am not referring to necessities such as Water, Electricity, Gas, etc.) if they achieved such good business trade purely because of their product's qualities and its own pricing strategies (and I don't believe product dumping really exists in normal business trade). And as the products/services owner, Apple has absolute authority to set their own pricing and to offer their special discount at any time it wants. So it is absolutely ridiculous to force a successful company such as Apple to open up its own market and to share its software secrets to third party competitors such that other people could link their own Music Player devices to Apple's iTunes Music Store. Not unless a government is setting a law to force its countrymen to buy such thing/services unwillingly. Again, let me emphasize it once again I don't believe that there is monopolization existed in the commercial world and in normal trading activities even if such company owns over 99.99% of the worldwide market purely because of its success in creating such products/services. Monopoly is a term used by the 2nd and 3rd rank of competitors in the commercial world against the market leader.
Google and Microsoft - Same principal applies to these companies. If you don't like the pricing and services offered by Google, you can go for other similar services offered by Yahoo and Microsoft. Why bothered to block the deal if Google thinks they can offer better service to customers by buying DoubleClick? If you think Microsoft is over-charging you, you can choose to run your PCs using the free Linux operating system or even buy an Apple iMac. I don't believe Microsoft Office, Exchange and Windows Operating Systems are monopolizing the business and consumer market. I don't believe any commercial products and services are irreplaceable. Again, no one is putting a gun at the CEO/CIO's head to force them to buy Microsoft's software. If you think Microsoft's product price/performance ratio is not good enough, pick other third party solutions. In today's fast growing high tech industry, you could easily find alternatives, even freebies, to do the exact same functions such as Email, Word processing, Spreadsheet, ERP, Database, Accounting, Group communication, etc. It's unwise or morally wrong to label Microsoft's products are monopolizing the commercial and consumer market. If the CIOs think that Microsoft is offering mediocre solutions, you can just scrap it all. But if you think Microsoft is offering a strong and good product to improve your company's overall operation efficiency and alleviate your MIS headaches, I think the CIO should pay whatever Microsoft is demanding. Again, if you think that the new product and new upgrade pricing are absurd and over-charging, no one is pointing a gun at your head to force you to do the upgrade. Buy an Apple iMac or change to Linux as alternative, do whatever you want.
It's sad to see that monopoly is now commonly used as a jargon by the 2nd and 3rd rate competitors to demand for fair competition in front of individual country authority and government trade commission.
My notion about bundling and free-dinner. I heard that there was such a successful restaurant chain which offered free dinner in U.S. and Europe if you bought their breakfast at standard price on same date. Their competitors raised the concern to the government officials in Europe. The government then sued the restaurant and demanded that the restaurant should have their dinner unbundled from their breakfast pricing. The reason is that it's abnormal in the market to offer free dinner at such price or to bundle the pricing of breakfast and dinner because it's unfair to the consumers and some consumers might not want to eat the dinner in the same restaurant. From then on, this restaurant chain is demanded by the government to get special permit no matter what additional free ingredient it wants to put into their standard breakfast.
I am brooding why Canon, Kodak, Casio, Panasonic-Lumix, Polaroid, Pentax, and Nikon didn't try to complain to the European Commission that major Mobile phone handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, and Sony-Ericsson unfairly bundled the Camera and Video recording features to their Mobile Phone Handsets which caused the overall annual year to year revenue of Camera and Video Recorder business dropped. The reason is that the overall consumers would not benefit from such additional camcording features in their mobile phone handsets.
I am sure Steve Jobs might have already prepared that sooner or later the EU would open a case against Apple because iPhone unfairly bundled their ubiquitous and almost monopolized iPod Music Player to a standard mobile phone. There is really no need to design an iPhone killer. All you need to do is to learn a few tricks from Microsoft's competitors how they could draw the attention of the senior officials of EU.
I am an outright believer of free economy. I certainly love an Apple iPhone which could offer the integrated and the equivalent features of an unlocked phone, a digital diary, a camera, a video recorder, an internet browser, a handheld game toy, a GPS, a secured contactless credit card, a portable printer scanner, and an enormous digital memory storage or whatever you can think of, at the current standard price of US$399. I would certainly be elated if Microsoft could bundle the features of CRM, ERP, HR, Finance Accounting, Business Intelligence, Network Management, Groupwise communication, Firewall Security, etc., into their system at their current standard price of Microsoft OS and MS Office.
The motive of monopolization of a market is to eliminate all your competitors in the same field and then raise your product pricing and profit margin. But in today's free market economy, I doubted any high tech companies could really monopolize any industry. And thus there is no need to have any government to interfere with normal business commercial activities. The market will be adjusted by itself. If Apple and Microsoft raised their product pricing ridiculously, I could always switch to a free Linux, a future Google phone or any free software prevalently existed in the Internet world.
