Agreed.
> Of which there are several.
I count one (Google). Who are the others in the smartphone space that are viable competitors to Apple in either company's home market (USA)?
I'm not sure "home markets" are really relevant for global entities like multinational companies.
Who are the viable competitors? It is Apple and Google/Android right? Everything else is the equivalent of Bing competing with Google Search. Keep in mind another MS defense was there is Mac and MacOS, we even build a IE for MacOS, therefore, we can't be a monopoly.
>To look at the smartphone market and how far it’s come in the last 10 years
Maybe there is a thriving competition in the smartphone OS market I am unaware of, but I thought maybe in the last 10 years the market went from MS, Blackberry, Apple, Google/Android...to more a consolidated market and effectively Apple and Google/Android.
The political outcome is interesting, I haven't heard that before, what exactly are the politics involved with wanting Apple to allow a 3rd party app store?
Like the fact that Microsoft had 90%+ desktop market share and was using it to shoe-horn an unrelated inferior product with powerful network effects into dominance.
Whereas Apple has no monopoly and in fact their overall smartphone market share is falling.
Let Apple compete how they want to compete, as long as there are viable competitors. Of which there are several.
To look at the smartphone market and how far it’s come in the last 10 years and decide this is a space which needs anti-competitive enforcement action from the FTC is abusing monopoly law to obtain a political outcome.