Re: Who is paying these corrupted judges, uh?
Microsoft had over 95% of the relevant market - i.e. the market for personal computers - during that time. Apple was in its death throes around that time. The FTC believed that gave them sufficient market power to exercise control over pricing and suppliers, which was proven by the fact that they DID do exactly that. Monopoly does not and never has required 100% share of a market. Only a large enough share that they dominate all market relationships.
Compare with Apple and the App Store. Apple exercises control over the App Store - i.e. choosing what apps can be offered in it. Crucially however, that control DOES NOT extend to the Google Play store. i.e. Apple is not telling devs "if you want to get your app approved for the App Store, you can't write an Android version of it". If they had sufficient market power to do that, and used it, then the FTC could consider antitrust action against them.
The language about "Intel based PCs" came about because Microsoft and Intel worked together to dominate that market, and the FTC also took action against Intel on multiple occasions as well. But they did consider Apple as competition in the personal computer space, just such minor competition that they really didn't make any difference in the amount of control Microsoft was able to exercise over OEMs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
