Volgens een of andere studie van twee pro-Mikrosoft organisaties (Association For Competitive Technology en The ASCII Group Inc.) gaat het opbreken van Mikrosoft de consument 30 miljard dollar kosten, omdat de software ontwikkelingskosten wegens het ontbreken van een monopolistische standaard omhoog zouden gaan. Hier een stuk info uit het artikel op ZDNet:
ACT and ASCII, meanwhile, are focusing on the findings of a study released today by Stan Liebowitz, professor of managerial economics and associate dean of the University of Texas at Dallas. Liebowitz's study, which he says is based on PC software company costs, software sales forecasts and personal interviews with software vendors, claims that consumers will pay $30 billion more in software costs over three years if Microsoft is split into multiple "Baby Bills" or forced to license its code.Liebowitz's study, called "Breaking Windows: Estimating the Cost of Breaking Up Microsoft Windows," makes that claim that remedial actions against Microsoft could "'balkanize' an operating system standard that has been the overwhelming choice of business and consumers for their desktop computers." Besides costing PC software vendors nearly $30 billion more in development, marketing and support costs required to adapt their software to "new Windows descendants," breaking up Windows would fragment the customer base and result in higher retail software prices, the study says.
