Conclusion
The case of the New Economy and its market of operating systems make several aspects clear. First and foremost, government does actually play an important role. It were not only involved with the founding of today's Internet predecessor, government is also stabilizing the market by examining anti trust cases, as we have considered in the case of Microsoft. Another very important aspect is the assessment of property rights. History showed us that companies that opt for a structure of openness do better than strictly proprietary companies. Again, Microsoft serves well as an example, as it has profited from IBM's openness in the 1980's and seems to suffer from the openness of the Linux architecture now. Linux's uprising has its roots in the open source character. As there are many independent programmers involved, of whom the very most for credit and respect rather than monetary bonus, the Linux movement can be described as social movement. According to Fligstein this clearly illustrates a reorganization of the existing market for OS. The fact that Linux could invade the very well protected market is certainly due to the fact that it is freely downloadable from the Internet or purchasable at low cost via one of the many distributors. The intervention of government and its decision that Microsoft has to separate into two parts is also one of Fligstein's indicators of market change. The cultural-political approach predicts at this point of time that a new conception of control will be established. …
