Antitrust War: Google's Chrome and the Sherman Antitrust Act

[forum_admin]

Google's (GOOG) announcement that it will launch its own browser based operating system (OS), in direct competition with Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows, has prompted widespread analysis that has focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the respective companies.

The problem we see with the majority of Chrome OS reactions, though, is that the viability of this product/concept is being judged from a very traditional point of view; usually involving side by side comparisons with Windows, an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, and the declaration of a winner. This approach is similar to evaluating insurgent forces using assumptions that were developed through years of traditional warfare. The premise that we think is necessary to adopt prior to an evaluation of Google's strategy is that, in all likelihood, no competitor has the ability to supplant Windows as the predominant operating system. To clarify however, we would only apply this premise to a competitor that attempts to gain market share through the use of conventional tactics. The introduction of Chrome OS to the marketplace carries with it a potent unconventional option: antitrust warfare.

On the US Department of Justice's Antitrust website, the Sherman Antitrust Act is summarized in part by the paragraph below:

The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when only one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anti competitive conduct.

To be sure, the DOJ has chosen to invoke rather vague language in it's attempt to describe the nature of anti competitive conduct; probably because the concept itself is, like a majority of legal matters, open to significant interpretation. What is clear, however, is that for a violation of Sherman to take place, one company's product must be aggrieved in a specific way by the actions of the monopoly-holding company.

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Google's Chrome: Cavalry in an Antitrust War