Can we measure Microsoft's market power ?

Overview & Synopsis

This paper has the objective of measuring the market power of Microsoft in the software industry. We develop a two tier arguent. Firstly we estimate the scale economies within the industry. We then make the crude hypothesis that a firm's success in this industry is linked to its size, based on the scale argument. We modelise these assumptions and then compare the expected profits and actual profits genereted by Microsoft. The results tend to show that Microsoft has posted profits in excess of those that such a firm is expected to benefit from if it does not have market power.