Better product for sure. But that doesn't mean it's not a monopoly.
>That means Microsoft has a better product, that doesn't mean it's a monopoly.
Actually that's the text book definition of monopoly.
Monopolies are thus characterized by
* a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service - nobody else is making commercial spreadsheet tools
* a lack of viable substitute goods - all the other stuff (google sheets, openoffice) isn't workable in practice
* high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost - a MS office download costs MS near nothing...selling price is still sky-high.
There are crazy network effects at play which create near insurmountable barriers to entry. Another sure sign of a monopoly vulnerable to monopoly pricing/profits.
I've taken plenty of business law classes, and I've never heard such a thing in terms of what defines a monopoly. Your 1st point is debunked by your second point. Your 2nd point of "isn't workable in practice" is just bunk. For your third point, GSuite costs more per seat than O365 in some cases...so I don't even know what you're talking about.
Spreadsheets are becoming old tech as big data picks up, which is why you're seeing a split in the substitute products.
For smaller datasets, there's online solutions like Google Sheets and Airtable. For larger datasets, there's thousands of different databases that work better than Excel. Either way, consumers have options.
>That means Microsoft has a better product, that doesn't mean it's a monopoly.
Actually that's the text book definition of monopoly.
Monopolies are thus characterized by
* a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service - nobody else is making commercial spreadsheet tools
* a lack of viable substitute goods - all the other stuff (google sheets, openoffice) isn't workable in practice
* high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost - a MS office download costs MS near nothing...selling price is still sky-high.
There are crazy network effects at play which create near insurmountable barriers to entry. Another sure sign of a monopoly vulnerable to monopoly pricing/profits.