Do you think the market for the computer operating system is competitive, monopolistic or something in between?

Computer Operating Systems

Most computer systems will not be able to function properly without an operating system installed in it . For home computer users , the operating systems are known to be the Microsoft Windows , Apple Macintosh , and Linux operating systems . Though there are about three different options or maybe even more , for computer users to choose from , Microsoft seems to be the dominant party in this market

History

The history of operating systems can go way back in the 1950s . But the very first Windows operating system came about in 1985

which is known as Microsoft Windows 1 .0 . Prior to this , most people just use the MS-DOS operating system which is , in fact , the underlying technology of most Windows OS . From then on , Microsoft introduced several Windows versions - Windows 2 .0 , 3 .0 , 3 .1 , NT 3 .1 , 95 , NT 4 .0 , 98 , 98SE , 2000 , ME , XP , and now , Vista . The first Apple operating system was the Apple DOS 3 .1 which was released in 1978 and evolved to more Macintosh versions . The first officially-named Mac OS was the Mac OS 7 .6 which came out in 1996 . The latest version of Mac OS now is the Mac OS X 10 .5 . Linux , on the other hand , released its very first version in early 1990s but only got known to more people later that decade . On top of these three computer firms there are a lot more operating systems that were released since the industry started (Wikipedia , 2007

Market Definitions

Tewari and Singh (1996 ) defined the market as a situation where buyers and sellers can interact and transact business , i .e , exchange commodities ' There are also different market models depending on the characteristics and behavior of those who make up the market . One type of market model is monopoly where in there is only one single firm producing and selling a certain product . The firm has the sole control over the product supplies (outputs ) and the pricing since there are no close competitors for the same product . Buyers have no other option but to buy the product from that firm alone . The market model opposite monopoly is competitive . In this model , there are a large number of buyers and sellers , the product is homogeneous , buyers and sellers have perfect information , resources are perfectly mobile and there is freedom of entry and exit (Tewari and Singh , 1996 . A competitive market is ideal in the sense that it gives buyers several options to choose from They are not tied with just a single firm and prices in this market model are definitely lower than in a monopolized market . In between monopoly and competitive , there is the so-called oligopoly . Tewari and Singh (1996 ) described these three features characterizing an oligopoly market : (i ) there are a few sellers (ii ) they may produce homogeneous or different products and (iii ) there is mutual interdependence between sellers with respect to pricing and output policies

OS Market Analysis

Given the above definitions of different market...