Former US Labor Secretary on antitrust investigation: "Hands off Apple"

Apple cultivates and broadens each product market that it enters, thereby stimulating competition and increasing product choices to consumers... For every product that Apple makes or creates, there are like at least half a dozen of competing products in the same genre. And, those competing products only seem to get better and cheaper over time.

So, please explain to me how does this constitute Apple as being a "monopoly?!"

People choose to buy Apple products, because they happen to like them. And, for those who don't like them, there are a handful of other products to pick from. So, monopoly my ass...

Apple haters are basically judgemental people with no objectivity and a twisted sense of logic.

@Jordan

Being the #1 manufacturer in the US is utterly irrelevant--monopoly power is about consumers, not manufacturers. Apple could be the only US phone manufacturer and the US cell phone market would still be extremely competitive because of all those foreign manufacturers that sell their wares in the US.

What's hilarious here is that Adobe--which touts Flash as "the world's most pervasive software platform"--has a lot more market power in Internet video than Apple has in cell phones or computers, and is therefore a much better subject for antitrust investigation than Apple. Arguably, Adobe offers a crippled version of its Flash software to Mac OS customers, using that market power to push users toward other OSs. But because of the extreme attention, good and bad, that Apple gets from the media, Adobe is the "little guy" in this spat.

Seriously, the only thing Apple really monopolizes is the media's attention, and there isn't much the DoJ can do about that.

"If Apple controlled 90% of the smartphone market there might be a case for calling this an anti-competitive practice."

Is 90% what determines if something is a monopoly or not?

"However, the only area where Apple has 100% control of the market is devices that run OS X or iPhone OS. That's it."

Then Microsoft never had a monopoly either, right? Because they only had 100% of control of the market over Windows. They didn't even have control over the devices since they didn't make the devices. They only had control over the software. So by your argument, Microsoft was even less of a monopoly than Apple might be, right?

Like I said, Adobe's Board should get SMART and FIRE their freaking CEO and send his butt packing down the highway. He's not helping matters at all in the world of software. In fact, he's slowing them down.

Flash should have been rewritten long ago, but they let go a number of Macromedia folks who had their hands in the initial software. I'd step in as CEO, bring them back toss them into a skunkworks operation and let them rewrite the tool from the ground up and give them 6 months to do it. Make it work with EVERY Browser out there and support HTML 5 as well.

But then again their board has yet to call, so I have better things to do with my time.

Michael Murdock, CEO
DocMurdock.com

Yeah, you can always go somewhere else if you don't like Apple's anti-competitive practices...I mean just like Microsoft and windows. You didn't have to buy a computer with windows on it, there was always buying a mac or linux, or any other number of options available to consumers.

So many arguments here from people who simply dont get it !!

1) It is not a monopoly. It never will be. Many countries including the US have specific laws that prevent monopolies from being created in the first place.

2) If it were a monoploy - a complaint from Adobe is not good enough to start an investigation. Adobe has vested interests, and consumer benefits not its primary goal

3) Even if an investigation is admitted, and on going. Adobe Flash vs HTML5 would be a credible debate. Consumers being affected by lack of flash is redeemed by HTML5.

Grow up. Accept it. Apple is strict with rules. Apple wants to maintain certain quality. Apple is not about creating another Microsoft or anyother generic device one which anywith will run, but just barely. They think user experience is #1. I completely buy their argument, even if i want to JB my phone and play around with it. Me able to do so, is different from a million+ others who simply want a working device, everytime all the time.

Sadly for the first time in the field computer devices, one company is ready to offer something close, and people jump on the bandwagon to bash it !!

my 2 cents... go ahead flame me :)

@Jordan
How long until Apple becomes a monopoly, you ask? Well, let's see. By definition, a monopoly is a situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. All of a market would obviously be 100%; to be generous, let's set a value for "nearly all" at 80% (4 out of 5 dentists, etc.). As of Q1 '10, Apple has less than 1% of the phone market globally, and less than 16% in the US. 80 - 16 = 64.

So, in answer to your question, when Apple gains another 64% of the market, they will be a monopoly. Isn't math fun?

"Case closed, Adobe. Thanks for playing."
"Adobe whined to the Feds"
"nonsensical antitrust investigation"

this post, just like most post by this author, or most on this blog
make clear to me the gap between journalism and amateur fanboyish
yellow press bullshit.

Clearly Reich doesn't know much about antitrust law (why should he), and neither does the poster, and neither do many of the commenters. Despite the roots of the name, "monopoly" doesn't mean you're the only player in a market, or even necessarily the only big player: it just means that you have substantial power to set prices, terms and/or conditions in a market; if you do, you're not allowed to use that power to unfairly disadvantage your actual or potential competitors in that market or any other market.

Market definition is probably the hardest and most important part of antitrust, and you just can't do it on gut feeling (and you also can't predict what an antitrust authority or a court will decide). There's at least arguably a market for the sale of applications on mobile devices: Apple may well have power in that market, and may be found to be using that power to exclude Adobe from a related market. If there is a separate market (loosely speaking) for App Stores, it's an emerging market, and the authorities will either be keen to prevent anybody from unfairly dominating that market, or they may just as likely decide to stay out of it and see how things develop.

Remember that capitalism only works where markets are functioning properly, which is almost never: regulation is frequently needed to allow real competition to thrive.

I think in this case it probably won't come to much, and I hate cross-compiled applications too -- but it's perfectly legitimate to ask these questions, it's helpful to almost everybody to bring some of this economic data out into the open, and prejudging the whole thing as "nonsensical" sounds pretty arrogant.

What everyone that parades about how Apple is exactly like Microsoft seems to forget, is that everything surrounding the iPhone is Apple's. Apple makes the operating system. Apple makes the hardware. Apple makes the iTunes Store and stores everything on Apple's servers. Software is only available through the iTunes Store and Apple approves the software that developers who have signed and agreed to contracts submit.

Microsoft on the other hand made only the operating system and preinstalled software. 3rd parties made the hardware. Microsoft didn't have an ecosystem. Apple on the other hand does. And we can't forget that Apple only has 16% smartphone market share, whereas Microsoft had 90-some% OS market share.