In the U. S. government's 1998 suit against the Microsoft Corporation, a central issue was whether Microsoft should be allowed to integrate its Internet browser into its Windows operating system. Microsoft responded that:
a. this integration of products is an example of tying, and the U. S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that tying is a perfectly acceptable and legal business practice.
b. this integration of products is an example of resale price maintenance, and the U. S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that fair trade is a perfectly acceptable and legal business practice
c. putting new features into old products is a natural part of technological practice.
d. it would discontinue this integration of products, provided a speedy resolution of the government's case could be reached

An office manager is concerned with declining productivity. despite the fact that she regularly monitors her clerical staff four times each day—at 9: 00 am, 11: 00 am, 1: 00 pm, and again at 3: 00 pm—office productivity has declined 30 percent since she assumed the helm one year ago. would you recommend that the office manager invest more time monitoring the productivity of her clerical staff? explain.

Fred smithers, a recent college graduate decided to open his own portable juice bar, smithers smoothies, to wheel around newport beach. you, a trusted friend of fred, are a business major that has also recently graduated and agreed to handle the books for a while to get some practical experience and have a favor that you can ask of fred in the future. given the following five transactions concerning the new venture, prepare the necessary journal entries for the transactions, post the journal entries to appropriate t accounts and prepare a trial balance as of the end of the month in order to answer to the necessary may 2: fred invests $12,000 of his own money to start the new company. this money was obtained from a part-time job working at a legal firm while he was in school. may 3: fred spent $5,100 cash to purchase a refrigerated trailer that he can pull behind his car and set up at the beach. under your advice, fred agrees to place the new asset under an account called "equipment." may 6: fred bought $640 of supplies on account from the flav-o-rite confectioners company. because they will last longer than a single accounting period fred agrees to record them as, "supplies" as per your suggestion. may 13: fred sat on the beach for six hours without a single sale and was feeling very down. right before he left, however, a plumber escorting his family reunion along the beach stopped by his stand and bought $800 worth of smoothies for the entire family. under your advice, fred agrees to call this cash revenue, "sales." may 15: excited about his new venture, fred withdraws $350 from the company to take his girlfriend out to dinner. what would be the balance in the cash account at the end of the period following the posting of all the transactions?

M. cotteleer electronics supplies microcomputer circuitry to a company that incorporates microprocessors into refrigerators and other home appliances. one of the components has an annual demand of 235 units, and this is constant throughout the year. carrying cost is estimated to be $1.25 per unit per year, and the ordering (setup) cost is $21 per order. a) to minimize cost, how many units should be ordered each time an order is placed? b) how many orders per year are needed with the optimal policy? c) what is the average inventory if costs are minimized? d) suppose that the ordering cost is not $21, and cotteleer has been ordering 125 units each time an order is placed. for this order policy (of q = 125) to be optimal, determine what the ordering cost would have to be.