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"Microsoft - an expanding monopoly"

A monopoly is an organization, which has power of control, which is not shared, by other people or groups. Just so every one knows.

All markets have different characteristics. And one of the main ways in which they differ is in the number of competing firms. The number of firms has a major impact on the level of competition in a market. Microsoft owns 95% or more of the world market for PC operating systems. The other 5% or so is made up of companies, which make operating systems that are made spastically for the buyer (only big business need this kind of operating system). As Microsoft owns this much of the market share this means they are a ‘virtual monopoly’, so they can control the 2 main of business strategy, which are:

Pricing decisions
Promotion decisions

So this means that Microsoft can charge nearly any price they want for their operating systems. They don’t have to advertise their operating systems, as we have no other alternates to buy. So Microsoft don’t have spend money on advertising, and they can charge high prices for their operating systems, so that Microsoft can make big money on operating systems.

Now for the main point. I think that Bill Gates is trying to expand his multibillion-dollar monopoly into other electronic departments. I also think that he wants Microsoft to own 95% of the worlds total market share. His first move was to enter the console market, a market that is hard to become the big cheese in. He also entered the telephone market; buy realising his own Microsoft branded telephone. To make it big in the games market he decided to realise the most powerful console to see if the main determents of buying a console is power. So he sent the most powerful console on to the market against Sony and Nintendo to see is he could beat the longest surviving games console producer and last years console winner.

His first strategic move is making all game producers make x-box only games, leaving its competitors with only the games that they produce. They started with Rare, which is making a direct assault on Nintendo by taking away one of its main game producers. This shows that Bill Gates wants to take Nintendo out of the gaming market, as getting rid of the oldest game producers which are starting to get boring, you can only have a certain amount of the same type of game.

So far Microsoft’s x-box is keeping up with Nintendo’s lower priced but less powerful machine. Obviously Microsoft wants to boost the sales of the x-box over Christmas by dropping the price of the console. They are doing this by putting out many TV advertisements; they are using adverts everywhere, in cinemas, in football stadiums, at buts stops, anywhere there target audience is they will advertise. The only way they can fund such a wide spread operation, is the money they are getting from there operating systems monopoly, without that money they would have to use the profits from the x-box’s sales, witch would of been spent on the rare buy, or on advertising. Even if they did use every bit of profit they have got from the x-box they still wouldn’t be able to pay for such a big operation.

Will Microsoft be able to turn the console market into a monopoly like it has done to the operating systems market? Will Microsoft be able to become the most popular console in the UK? They will have to focus on becoming the best console next time they make one, but will that beat Sony the double console war winner? (it looks like will win again at this point in time)

Sorry if I seem offensive to Microsoft, Bill Gates or the x-box, but I could not word it any other way as it would be to hard to make the point seem clear.

Thanks for reading (if you did)

Morbo

Mmm... Macs...

*Prods sexy new flat-screen iMac*

RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Mmm... Macs...
>
> *Prods sexy new flat-screen iMac*

Have you blocked me on MSN?

RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Mmm... Macs...
>
> *Prods sexy new flat-screen iMac*

Yay!

I like Monopoly.

http://www.ask.com/main/askjeeves.asp?ask=what+percent+of+ the+world+share+ for+operating+systems+does+microsoft+have&o=0

go to this (take out the spaces) then click on

US VS microsoft

then click on market share

this will tell you the facts and figures i have included in the topic. (i have just found this)

HalloHowArtThou wrote:
> Have you blocked me on MSN?

Quite possibly.

What's your address?

[email protected]

Oh, I like Monopoly!:-0

HalloHowArtThou wrote:
> [email protected]

Hmm. I think I deleted you because you were annoying me.

oh. sorry. :-P