There have been many arguments and issues that have been raised with the controversy over Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice’s claim against Microsoft and its founder Bill Gates of monopolistic practices in bundling its internet browser “Internet Explorer” into its popular Windows computer operating system. By doing this, Microsoft would effectively crush its competitors (it’s main rival being Netscape Navigator), and acquire a monopoly over the software that people use to access the Internet.I recently heard a listener on NPR (National Public Radio) comment about the monopoly issue between Microsoft and the U.S. D.O.J. that “Intellectual endeavors are vastly infinite and thus cannot be monopolized.” I wonder if the person who said this has ever tried telling that to Bill Gates. More importantly, is such a statement true? Does computer software constitute an intellectual endeavor that cannot be monopolized? To answer this issue, an inductive argument can be applied to determine if Microsoft truly has a monopoly over the computer industry. To say that something is infinite implies that there is an endless supply of it. Is this the case in terms of the Internet and the software that is used to “navigate” or “explore” the Internet as the two leading Internet Browsers have been dubbed by their makers? The resources of the Internet may seem infinitely vast, but it is wholly finite. There is an abundance of information out there on the Internet that it seems unlikely that any one company or even a country like the U.S. could ever monopolize this vast data network. By the nature of how the Internet works and how information is stored and shared on the network, it is true that a monopoly cannot be held over the intellectual information stored within the Internet. On this point I will accede to the original author’s claim that intellectual endeavors cannot b...
