You know, with all the hoopla surrounding the ongoing antitrust case against Microsoft, it's easy to lose sight of exactly why the government is taking action against them. One of the fundamental issues at hand is that Microsoft may be using its near-monopoly in the desktop operating system market (Windows hovers at somewhere around 90% market share, by most accounts) to establish a new monopoly in the internet browser market. By tying Internet Explorer to Windows both by including it in the OS distribution and by contractually reuiring all Windows licesnees not to remove it, Microsoft has managed to walk in and take over about half of the browser market. Smart-- and possibly illegal, hence the lawsuits.

But what about the premise of that argument-- that Microsoft even has a monopoly in desktop operating systems in the first place? After all, a monopoly implies that consumers have no choice but to buy from a single supplier. There are certainly plenty of non-Windows operating systems around (Linux, OS/2, BeOS, etc.), even if you choose to buy an Intel-based PC. That's why the report recently filed by UCLA undergrad David Chun is so fascinating; in it, he details how he called a dozen PC manufacturers and found that he was forced to buy Windows if he bought a computer from any of them. Among a group consisting of companies like Gateway, Sony, NEC, Dell, Micron, and more, not a single vendor was willing to sell a PC without Windows preinstalled. When asked why they wouldn't sell a system without Windows pre-loaded, and wouldn't allow the customer to delete Windows upon receipt of the system and then return the Windows license for a refund, about half of the companies explicitly mentioned that they are under contract with Microsoft. (We found the link to David's findings on MacInTouch.)

Interesting, isn't it? While PC purchasers do have the option of running non-Windows operating systems, it seems they still have to pay for Windows anyway. Heck, even IBM, who has their own PC operating system called OS/2, requires that customers pay for Windows even if they opt to purchase OS/2 for their new Aptiva. Why? "That's just the way it is." Read: "It's part of our Windows licensee contract." So it appears that one would have to jump through hoops to buy a PC without buying Windows, either by buying from a small non-Windows-licensed manufacturer, or by building a system from scratch. This little round-headed guy with a top hat and a white mustache comes to mind...