Microsoft is dominating every game, every game except one. Microsoft is playing many games simultaneously, and each game represents a different software market - operating systems, word processing, data bases, PFM's, etc. The attempted Intuit acquisition can be likened to a child playing a game of chess. Microsoft's coffers, bulging into the billions, can be used to make that superior product in the end, the market will lean towards the better software and all consumers will benefit. A 70% market share, however large, can be swayed with the force of a clearly superior product. Microsoft's attempted purchase reveals an unwillingness on the part of the software goliath to improve its own software in the face of tough competition. The two largest PFM's are Microsoft Money and Intuit's Quicken. Progress occurs through competition, and a Microsoft control of Quicken would have strangled competition. The Department of Justice's case is compelling. Bill Gates explained the surrender as follows: "Progress toward realizing our goals could not wait until the government's law suit was resolved." The DOJ successfully killed the merger, but was the killing justified and was the killing fair? Soon after the suit, in a move uncharacteristic of the company's relentless drive forward, Microsoft pulled out of the deal. Early in 1995, the United States Department of Justice filed an anti-trust complaint blocking the acquisition, claiming it would give Microsoft a virtual monopoly on the US PFM market and give it a "cornerstone asset" with which to control on-line home financial services. For $2.3 billion, Microsoft would have control over Quicken's 70 percent of the emerging PFM market. In October of 1994, Microsoft agreed to purchase Intuit, the software company which owns Quicken, the world's most popular personal finance manager (PFM). Intuit chairman Scott Cook wrote in a September 1994 memo, "Our combination gives one clear option - eliminating a bloody market share war, and speeding adoption." In regard to the Microsoft-Intuit merger, Gary Reback, Palo Alto lawyer and author of the White Paper, states, "My greatest fear is that an inferior technology could be locked in and bring progress to a halt."
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