cover image Trust on Trial: How the Microsoft Case Is Reframing the Rules of Competition

Trust on Trial: How the Microsoft Case Is Reframing the Rules of Competition

Richard B. McKenzie. Basic Books, $26 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-7382-0331-7

A professor in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California-Irvine, McKenzie uses the Microsoft antitrust trial to ask, ""Are the efficiency goals of the U.S. economy as a whole best served by using existing antitrust legislation to assess the business practices of an industry leader in the New Economy?"" His answer is a resounding ""no"": the motivations behind antitrust actions in the past century remain suspicious, he writes, and such actions ultimately hurt industry. McKenzie ardently believes that Microsoft's unusual profitability (its $8 billion profit in 1999 represents a return on sales of 39%, the highest of any major American corporation) has nothing to do with any monopoly power; rather, he says, it stems from the company's production of superior products, which are sold at prices other firms can't match. The author posits a conspiracy among Microsoft's competitors, who he claims have courted and convinced (unnamed) corrupt politicians to exploit antitrust policy to crush the software giant. McKenzie's rigid ideological position ultimately limits the intellectual reach of his book. In wholeheartedly supporting Microsoft's freedom to act as it pleases, McKenzie often presents unfounded theories. For example, he ominously predicts that any penalties assessed against Microsoft will inhibit innovation in the software industry. Yet earlier he acknowledges that Microsoft regularly buys market-proven software developed by others, which it integrates into and distributes with its own existing products. Thus, McKenzie undermines his own credibility--and he also misses an opportunity to propose more appropriate corrections for market imbalances in the New Economy. (May)