BUSINESS ETHICS

GROUP 5
A CASE STUDY ON MICROSOFT’S COMPETITIVE PRACTICES AND BUSINESS
STRATEGY

Submitted by :
Mugdha 18041
Rahul V 18042
Shamanth 18043
Shreya 18044
Siddanth 18045
Souparnika 18046
Submitted to : Thejus 18047
Viswanath 18048
Dr. Nilanjan Sengupta Vignesh 18049
Yashank 18050
Sudarshan 18063
EIC Analysis
Environment: Media, European Union ,U.S Departmental Of Justice
Antitrust laws are developed by the Government to protect consumers from predatory business
practices by ensuring that fair competition exists in an open-market economy.

Industry: Google, IBM, Oracle, Sun micro systems, Real networks.

The different competitors of the software industry are the secondary stakeholders who would
get effected due to the monopoly practices that Microsoft carried out.

Company: Employees, Customers, Share holders.

These are the primary stakeholders of the company who would be effected in the long and
short runs due to the companies decisions.
Reaction Through Accommodation
 Reaction : Microsoft has been fined $781 Million by the EU Commission for non
compliance.

 Defense : Tried to appeal against the first fine to the EU Commission but lost the
appeal.

 Insight : Fought the anti trust battle from 2004 to 2009 and was the under the
observation of U.S Department of Justice and EU Commission.

 Accommodation : Number of meetings and information transfers were held but was
not satisfactory. Also decided to air the conflict to the press.

 Agency : Tried to become a monopoly and did not provide information to third
party developers.
Question 1) Ethics in the company that is being practiced

 Dominating and controlling competition - Acquisition of complementary and

potential future rivals lead to monopoly in the U.S.
 Lack of Alternatives - No choice for customers and did not disclose information to
third party developers.
 Failing to comply with rulings by the EU.
 New school of thought – Respected the changes of the user to use any search
engine.
Question 2) Which stakeholders really stand to lose or
win in Microsoft’s quest to become no.1 in technology
markets?
PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS
 Shareholders - win
 Suppliers - win
 Employees – win
 Customers (PC users) - lose

SECONDARY STAKEHOLDERS
 Media - win
 Communities - lose
 Policy makers (International government organisations) - lose
 Competitors - lose