FILE - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, left, and president and CEO Steve Ballmer speak at a news conference on April 3, 2000 in Redmond, Wash. The U.S. Justice Department’s double-barreled antitrust attack on Google’s dominant search and Apple’s trendsetting iPhone is reviving memories of another epic battle that hobbled Microsoft before it roared back to yet again become the world’s most valuable company. FILE - People arrive at the recently opened Google building in New York, Feb. 26, 2024.
In closing arguments of a Washington, D.C., trial that began last September, regulators Thursday will apply the finishing touches to a case alleging Google has turned its search engine into an illegal monopoly that stifles competition and innovation. The Apple case, which was only filed a month ago, is still years away from its resolution.
The Microsoft case “created new opportunities for innovation in areas that would become critical to the success of Apple’s consumer devices and the company itself,” the Justice Department crowed in the lawsuit that casts the iPhone as an illegal monopoly. It’s an odd juxtaposition that has thrust regulators into battling two companies they helped create when they caged a colossus now angling to seize the mantle in technology’s next frontier.
The Justice Department’s landmark case against Microsoft was not the first time an antitrust lawsuit turned into a springboard for other companies to emerge as dominant forces that eventually need to be corralled, too.