Apple's market clout likely to draw more scrutiny
The e-book case demonstrates the market leverage Apple has gained from its system of Internet-connected devices that tie into iTunes, its digital marketplace for mobile applications, books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, movies and music. Apple has sold more than 315 million iPhones, iPads and iPods that run on its mobile operating system, giving it the keys to a market that will become increasingly influential as more people buy digital content for their electronic devices. Apple may simply behave better than some of its rivals, or it may be doing business in areas that are so new that government regulators are still learning how those nascent markets function, says D. Daniel Sokol, an associate law professor who focuses on antitrust issues at the University of Florida. Government regulators in the U.S. and Europe are also monitoring Apple, Google and Microsoft for any sign they are wielding key patents to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the mobile phone market. Apple's stable of popular mobile devices and the conjoined market for selling digital content will become even more pivotal if the vision of the company's late co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, pans out. The way Jobs saw it before he died five months ago, technology is in the early stages of a phase that will de-emphasize the importance of personal computers running on Microsoft's software as people instead rely on sleek, highly portable devices that traverse high-speed Internet connections to fetch content and other files stored in far-flung data centers. [...] more than 300 million devices are already running on Google's Android software, and major PC makers such as Hewlett Packard Co. and Dell Inc. are hoping to make a dent in the tablet computer market later this year with devices running Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 8.