The Great Reawakening

Two decades ago the U.S. government tried to break up Microsoft Corp.

- By Joe Nocera

It accused the company of leveraging its operating-system monopoly to squash the rival Netscape browser. An epic, yearlong trial ended in the summer of 2000 when a federal judge found Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations and ordered it split in two.

For a brief moment, it appeared that tough antitrust enforcement—largely dormant since the government abandoned its 13-year quest to break up IBM Corp. in 1982—was resurgent. But it wasn’t to be. The breakup order was reversed on appeal, and the Microsoft case was quickly settled once George W. Bush became president.

After which, well, let’s see: There have been six airline mergers since 2000, reducing the number of major carriers from 10 to 4. There have been 42 pharmaceutical mergers worth more than $10 billion each. So many financial institutions have combined that there are only four national consumer banks left: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. Thanks to consolidation, just four companies control 76% of the nation’s soybean market. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, meanwhile, have grown into enormously powerful companies that are often accused of crushing rivals and squelching innovation.