Microsoft, Competition and Competition Policy

The Microsoft case has thrown up interesting issues in the area of regulation of anti-competitive practices. This has relevance for India in the context of the Competition Policy that is currently being debated. The main objective here is to examine in detail the case against Microsoft and the remedy that has been proposed by the court. The paper also looks at the proposed remedy from a transaction costs perspective and puts forward some conjectures on the likely effect on innovations in the software industry. The paper touches upon some of the more contentious issues regarding the Report of the Committee on Competition Policy.