Econmics(_Microsoft_case quesitons ) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Econmics(_Microsoft_case quesitons ) - Essay Example Microsoft became a monopoly because the company was able to create and mandate the use of their own universal data interaction standards to be eventually used in all personal computers. Microsoft was successful at implementing their strategy because, unlike their competitors at the time Apple and Commodore, Microsoft’s philosophy was to create an operating system that allowed any computer be it for personal use or business to operate and communicate and communicate with each other seamlessly (Fisher, 2000). 2) When a firm decides to behave monopolistically it recognizes its influence over market price. In the case of a monopoly, instead of allowing supply and demand to determine the highest price the market will bear, monopolies choose a level of production output and pricing structure that maximizes their own profits. For a monopoly profits are maximized when marginal costs equal marginal revenue. A we can see on the graph the point where Q* and P* intersect corresponds to th e point where MC=MR. If marginal revenue is less than marginal costs, its economically advantageous for the firm to choose to produce less than the maximum output since the savings in costs would more than make up for the increased marginal revenue. If a company operates in a competitive environment instead of being a monopoly production output would be in line with the point in the graph (pl) where price equals marginal costs. Thus in general a monopolistic marketplace is characterized by having higher prices and lower production when compared with an open competitive market. As a rule a monopoly will be very inefficient since a monopolist will produce a level output less than the competitive amount and is consequently Pareto inefficient. Monopolies are detrimental to consumer interests since they allow companies to create abnormal profit levels by obligating consumers to pay higher prices and due to a lack of any competition, product quality, innovation and variety will also be ne gatively affected. 3)From its inception, in order to protect is market share, Microsoft purposely created its operating systems to restrict easy integration and interoperability between PC’s using their Windows operating system and group servers not utilizing Microsoft’s server operating system. The company utilized the practice of bundling its browser Internet Explorer to their Windows operating system without providing the user other browser options by default. The company was also guilty of tying its Windows Media Player with its Windows Operating System which currently has a around over a 90% market share in the European Union (Statcounter, 2011).The European Union investigation concluded that Microsoft was purposely and illegally withholding interface information from its competitors in order to put them at a disadvantage. This is in clear violation of Europe’s antitrust laws. 4) The European Union was originally created in 1958 with the purpose of stopping the wars in Europe. Six countries originally joined the EU: Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Soon with the political and economic success of the union many of the other European nations joined the union and today it has over 27 member countries including non European nations such as US, China, and Japan. Today the

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 3

Marketing - Essay Example These impacts have proven to be found on the cost and availability of credit; household budgets, mortgages, pensions, big and small company financing and other related funding issues (QFinance, 2010). Thus, the current trend is to substantially create a good financial market for banking and financial services that aim at stimulating market needs. However, it is not only one organisation that tries to play or compete in this type of market. There are many of them which eventually create competitive rivalry. According to Porter (1998; 1984), there are new market entrants, supplier power, buyer power and product and technology development that together create a certain force for competitive rivalry. This same scenario is certainly part of the banking and financial market. In fact, this is visible because of the presence of some policies. For instance, economic policy measures are very important because they can essentially remove barriers to outside competition (Maudos and de Guevara, 2 007). Building societies versus banks There are major differences between banks and building societies even though they both belong to one category of banking and financial market. These differences are tantamount to the level of advantages and disadvantages an individual can possibly get. According to Building Societies Association (2011), there are three major differences between banks and building societies. One of these major differences is the emphasis that the building societies are mutual institutions. This gives certain rights and privileges to members who have savings account or mortgage to vote and acquire information. The second major difference is the fact that building societies are not companies which are successfully run by their shareholders. The good thing about this is that there are no external pressures from shareholders which normally on the point of maximising profits to pay away as dividends. Thus, this ensures operating the business at a lower cost, cheaper m ortgages, and other better opportunities such as rates on savings compared to other competitors. Considering that there are different types of shareholders, it is important to understand that companies are always subject to different motives of shareholders in order for them to get substantial benefits to satisfy their needs. The third difference is in line with the limit of proportion of funds raise by building societies from wholesale money markets. This is a sort of giving much more security and in return it gives substantial opportunity for investors. Current Harpenden Building Society trends Based on its company website, the following are important information about Harpenden Building Society that can help trace its current trends (Harpenden Building Society, 2010). It can be noted that Harpenden is one of the active 52 UK building societies which primarily consists of 20,000 members with 25,000 accounts. Harpenden is amazingly having no borrowings on the money market. Starting in 2008, Harpenden’s deposits increased by over 11% and its mortgages increased by more than 9%. Not only that, Harpenden was highly commended for its mortgaged for SVR. From Best Children’s Account Provider, Harpenden won the Moneyfacts award. All of these only substantially illustrate the fact that the business for Harpenden is significantly increasing to the fullest as it substantially targets the right segment, moves and