Microsoft To Officially Become a Monopoly in Russia
by
on April 02, 2009,
Yesterday Russian anti-monopoly authorities informed us about the fact that they intend to officially include Microsoft in the register of monopolies doing business in the country. To be listed as a monopoly, a company needs to hold more than 35% market share in any market segment and while there has been no official investigation of Microsoft standing yet, the officials are pretty certain that the software giant occupies much more than 35% at least in the market of operating systems in Russia.
So after the proper investigation Microsoft will have to face a chance of being included in the list of official monopolies which will make it the first IT company in Russia making appearance in the register of monopolies. The investigation will take a couple of month and if Microsoft is found to be monopolizing the market, it will have to face quite a number of unpleasant surprises as the Russian authorities will be able to track the software giant’s activities in the market and prevent the corporation from abusing its market domination.
In this manner the company will be monitored to see if it uses prices that are unreasonably high or unreasonably low and prevent competition in the market. But all in all being on the register is not dangerous in itself - it only means the activities of the corporation will be watched closer by appropriate authorities. But of course there are chances that eventually the Russian authorities will follow the example of those in Europe and start to impose fines on corporation for making it difficult for other companies (like Mozilla) to enter the market.
It looks like the Russian Anti-monopoly service tries to pay rather close attention to the best-known international IT brands: for example, last year it blocked the $140 million acquisition of a Russian contextual advertising company Begun claiming that they have not received enough documentation about the acquisition to make sure it will not hurt the competitive market in this industry in the country.
Now it is Microsoft’s turn to face an investigation that could lead it just about anywhere in the country - especially given our latest affection towards open-source products that is now official and is supported by the President Medvedev and many government officials as well. Chances are Microsoft will hardly feel as comfortable as it used to in Russia.
