Would You Pay $1000 For Windows?

markbark writes: "Stan J. Liebowitz, a prof at the U of Texas Management School, has released a screed saying that the world economy could take a $300 billion dollar bite in the ass if Microsoft is broken up. Tales of $2000 computers with Windows costing an additional $1000. The whole 39-page PDF file can be found here . The whole thing was bankrolled by M$ apologists extraordinaire the Association for Competitive Technology and should be taken with an extremely large grain of salt." (More below.)

If you're interested in the anti-breakup point of view, even as devil's advocate, this is a useful place to start. I don't buy all of Liebowitz's assumptions or conclusions, but it's much more informative than most flamewars, and does bring up some nagging ideas about market behavior and legal remedies.

I found interesting, too, his assertion that "[a]t the current time, there appear to be virtually no major desktop applications that have been ported to Linux, including those from such market leaders as Intuit, Symantec, Lotus, Adobe, or Quark." Fewer than I'd like, certainly, but "virtually none" is hard to buy.

It's not unreasonable to suggest that the price of Windows would rise if it was made by a newly-formed separate division of Microsoft, but if the marketplace is truly dynamic, it seems like that change could as well be in the opposite direction. (How much would Liebowitz have predicted Netscape's browser to cost today, given the information available in 1993?)

And for some devil's advocacy the other direction, you might find this Motley Fool article (suggested by sjbe and others) an interesting take on an MS breakup as well.

Comments

90% of PC buyers don't care about OS

[woggo]

Liebowitz relies on the flawed assumption that the "windows standard" is something comforting to consumers, and that without the promise of that standard, that balkanization will ensue. Yeah, I remember when I couldn't run VIC-20 BASIC programs on my TI/99-4A, and I remember when my Amiga couldn't share files with a Mac. However, those were 18 and 15 years ago, respectively.

PC buyers don't really care about operating systems, except as far as brand loyalty (like the current inane crop of Pepsi and Coke ads in the US try and appeal to). The "average" home PC buyer really wants a web browser, e-mail, and some sort of word processor. A few want games, a few want office applications, and more than a few want some applications which replace accumulating paper (a la Quicken or a PIM). However, no one cares whether it's Microsoft or Mac or a Xerox Alto, as long as it does what they want, is fairly easy to use, and doesn't break at critical times.

Microsoft's marketing muscle and anti-competitive tactics have increased "brand loyalty" by creating the illusion that other operating environments are somehow incompatible, less functional, or incapable of interoperability with Windows, the "market leader". Therefore, for many PC buyers, liking Microsoft is like liking the popular and unchallenged local sports team -- there's little chance they'll lose, and they never *really* disappoint. There's no compelling reason *to* like them, but it's too much work to be a fan of anyone else. Unfortunately, unlike those scenarios of a couple of decades ago, my computer is powerful enough to run Windows on top of Linux, and run all of my old Amiga software besides. Even without Windows, I can still interoperate passably with windows-using colleagues for most things. (although I do use TeX for all word processing, even musicology papers -- with musical examples)

It's really telling that devices like the i-opener are wildly successful even though they're nothing close to Windows -- but that really proves that what draws people to computers is applications. Sure, on Windows, I can pay for seven different browsers (or get one that's inextricable from the OS kernel) and five different office suites -- but I only need one of each. Beyond that, even, the "applications" that people want are things like cnn.com, amazon.com, Napster, and e-mail -- and I can get to CNN from my mobile phone as easily as from a Windows box.

Microsoft is riding on brand loyalty, which they create and enforce with anti-trust actions. Unfortunately, their ride is slowing, because there aren't any compelling features in their products for most users, and there are enough people reverse-engineering MSFT stuff to provide reasonable interoperability from other operating environments. Most people don't need Word to manage bibliographies or outlines -- they don't really need anything more than Works, but they keep Word around to read Word documents....

~wog

Would I pay 1000 dollars for windows?

[MustardMan]

Well that depends, what kind of windows are they? Anderson? Double hung? Tempered glass? Bulletproof? A nice energy efficient bay window for my living room with good double hung side panels that flip down for easy cleaning, I could easily justify spending a grand on.

Clue check

[DragonHawk]

You have to realize that linux has a weak point ... it is NOT 100% POSIX compliant ...

Um, neither is Windows NT.

Next, please?

Symantec's irrelevant to Linux

[Frater 219]

Symantec & Lotus: They already sold out, or have been crushed by Microsoft. Much more worrisome.

Of course Symantec wouldn't port their products to Linux. Most of Symantec's products would be completely unnecessary under Linux. Symantec's products page presently lists 17 software products, of which three serve solely to fix Windows or MacOS design flaws, eight serve purposes already well-served by existing free software, and two serve political purposes not in tune with many or most users of Linux-based OSes. I count only three as potential Linux-based products.

The following Symantec products serve to correct or work around design flaws of Windows/DOS or MacOS:

• Norton AntiVirus -- While viruses running under Linux have been created as experiments, the Linux platform does not suffer from the promiscuous vulnerability to machine-code viruses of unprotected platforms. Nor do Linux's popular applications suffer from unprotected scripting systems vulnerable to viruses.
• Norton CleanSweep -- Almost all Linux-based OSes use package-management systems such as dpkg and rpm, which permit the clean uninstallation of programs.
• Norton Speed Disk -- ext2fs, the current standard filesystem for Linux, does not suffer from the severe fragmentation problems of FAT, nor from the somewhat lesser but noticeable ones of FAT's successors and MacOS's HFS.

The following Symantec products serve purposes already filled by existing free software:

• Mail Gear -- The foremost mail daemons for Linux (such as sendmail, postfix, and qmail) already support the filtration of mail. Users can use procmail recipes or other tools to accomplish the task at their level.
• Norton Ghost -- Virtually every Linux-based OS ships with backup/recovery and disk-imaging tools such as dump, tar, and dd. There are even X-based versions such as guiTAR available.
• Norton Internet Security (firewall portion) -- Firewall capability is built into the Linux kernel. Several popular free packages exist to do rule-based intrusion detection, such as snort.
• Norton Utilities -- Though ext2fs is more robust than FAT or HFS, it can suffer from disk hosement in certain situations (such as loss of power); in these cases, Linux already has fsck. (Norton Utilities also contains tools that belong in the previous category, such as software to prevent program crashes from bringing down the whole OS.)
• pcAnywhere -- Linux has ssh and X for secure remote login and display.
• Procomm Plus -- The last thing Linux needs is another terminal emulator.
• Retriever -- Port-scanning software is hardly anything new to Unix; for network security mapping try SATAN or one of its derivatives such as SAINT.
• WinFax PRO -- The Hylafax system supports the sending and receiving of faxes under Linux (and other Unices) as well as network-based faxing.

The following Symantec products serve political purposes not in tune with many or most Linux users; specifically, they are parental or office censorware:

• I-Gear
• Norton Internet Security (censorware portion)

(The functionality of censorware may be duplicated with free software, so these could perhaps be put in the previous category; however, due to the general opinion of censorware as Bad And Wrong [i.e. unethical on principle and furthermore broken in its implementations] among the Linux community, they belong in their own category.)

The following Symantec products are potentially useful under a Linux-based OS:

• Expert -- From the blurb, this sounds like an attempt at implementing Bruce Schneier's model of analyzing security as a business risk. (I am not convinced that Schneier is right, nor do I claim that Symantec Expert is a good implementation of his ideas ... but that's another story.)
• Mobile Essentials -- While one could well keep several versions of /etc in tarballs and untar the right one for each location, I imagine laptop users would like a clean way to switch from one set of settings to another.
• TalkWorks PRO -- The last time I looked into the matter, there didn't seem to be any reasonably advanced voice-mail or answering-machine packages for Linux.

(Mobile WinFax is not counted as it runs on the PalmOS, not a conventional OS. Norton SystemWorks is not counted because it is a bundle of several packages listed above.)

In short, it is not to be taken as a surprise that Symantec, and other "utility software" companies, see themselves as not having anything to offer the Linux community -- they don't.

Paying only $1000?

[citizenc]

If you are a user who obtains Windows software by legal means, (such as from a store.. there has to be at least one or two of you left) odds are fairly good that you have paid almost that much already.

See, Microsoft is a 'lets-make-money-forget-the-customers' company -- they charge for everything, including every piddly little upgrade for Windows. (The Windows 98 -> SE upgrade is almost $90 from EggHead.com .. but all it did was fix bugs.)

Windows 95 Upgrade (From 3.11) - $125
Windows 98 Upgrade (From 95) - $125
Windows 98 SE Upgrade (From 98) - $125

The FULL versions of these pieces of software are at least twice as much. (At least here in Canada.. granted, our currency is worth slightly more then a pile of donkey shit.)

Oddly enough, Microsoft sent me a copy of Milennium for free. (I beta tested it for them.) Guess where it is now?

(Answer to rethorical question: on my coffee table, making sure that wet glasses don't leave moisture rings!)


------------
CitizenC

current cost of Windows

[dutky]

Just two points:

1. Anyone who has been using Windows since version 3.1 (the earliest version at which the product was anything more than a joke) then they have, by now, paid between $250 and $500 for the product, if they have been upgrading faithfully. If they made the jump to Windows NT they are probably verging on that magical $1000 mark by now, if they have not already surpassed it.

   On top of the outright cost, we should probably be counting the costs factored into bundled hardware sales and third party software development, which I couldn't even begin to compute here. I'll just say that I suspect that costs to consumers have been increased, rather than lowered, by the existance of the Microsoft monopoly.

2. If Microsoft has anything to say about the matter, every Windows user will be forced to pay an annual fee for the privilage. I don't know what the actual fee is likely to be, but I suspect that it would rapidly accumulate into a sizable chunk of change.

   It is exactly the monopoly power that Microsoft wields that will allow them to institute this new pricing scheme.

Microsoft pricing

[Animats]

The guy has an interesting point, which can be summarized roughly as follows:

Microsoft sells their OS for less than they could get for it given their monopoly. Most of the profit comes from the applications. With a breakup, the OS company would have to make money from just the OS, not the applications, and they'd have a monopoly on Windows, so they might raise the price.

That's not a totally stupid claim. That's what might happen for the first few years after a breakup, until the market share of Windows declined. On the other hand, the guy doesn't mention that Microsoft has about 3x the return on investment of the rest of the desktop software industry.

He also makes the point that Microsoft's standardization of APIs does have some value. Remember when apps had to have printer drivers? The UNIX community had a terrible time standardizing; POSIX is pretty basic (no GUI) and there's still some Berkeley/AT&T incompatibility. On the other hand, once you've ported to a variant of UNIX, you usually don't have to update as often as you do with Windows. (Ask anybody who writes to Direct-X.)

It's a very biased article, but not totally dumb.

the reality and loss of no windows.

[itzdandy]

You have to realize that linux has a weak point when it commes to being accepted as a replacement for M$, it is NOT 100% POSIX compliant, hobists and businesses use it but the US gov wont back it until it is compliant and the gov has a lot of power and influence.

Another thing, why does slashdot think that there are only two sides?(ms and linux) There are many sides and linux may not come out on top. There is a loyal following of BSD, the MAC is still strong despite everyones claims against it, and BeOS is a stable, powerfull OS that might get some development attention if MS were to get cut. QNX has a nice new OS out that is 100% posix compliant and has the beginnings of a nice GUI.

Microsoft(or one of the parts) would still have quite a bit of controll because of costly upgrades or change overs to other operating systems and data transfers. They would be in need just for compatibiliy with existing data files.

Well it's already up to $380.66 last I looked...

[sheldon]

I just took a look at ebay, and someone is apparently willing to pay at least $380.66 for Windows.

Someone selling Windows 1.0 on Ebay

Re:Too late now

[generic-man]

It's cute that you _think_ that Microsoft is despised by the public, but in fact that's not true. When the Microsoft ruling was first handed down, a survey by the Gallup Poll showed that people actually liked Microsoft. 69% of respondents had a positive view of Bill Gates, making him more likeable than either of the two presidential candidates.

What's most important about this case, however, is how few people outside of the whiny geek contingent actually care about the issue. In the poll mentioned earlier, a sizeable number of people responding to the poll were undecided. Most people who use Microsoft products are sometimes annoyed by the crashing and the cost of upgrading systems, but these are the same people who have used AOL for three years despite all of its technical problems. (The reasons for both cases: "everyone uses it, so there can't be something better" and "I already know how to use this, and I don't want to learn something new.")

In fact, according to the Gallup poll once again, the trend is increasing in favor of Microsoft. Try to convert a Microsoft lifer to Linux. The second he/she gets a link to a Windows Media Player or QuickTime movie, a cute EXE attachment like a video greeting card, or a Microsoft Office document for StarOffice to slowly beat to death, you'll have some 'splaining to do.

Say the word Microsoft, watch IQs plummet

[Dreamweaver]

Jeeze.. i think MS is just as dirty as the next guy, but why is it that when someone says "Microsoft" on slashdot the apparent intelligence of the posters drops to about 7?

All up and down the thread i see "Ha! Do that and nobody will buy it!"
--okay, pay attention now, this is the important bit--
That's The Freaking Point!

The whole idea here is that breaking up MS is a bad idea because it would drive the price of MS products up, causing fewer people to buy them, hurting the tech market by alienating customers. Now, before you say, "Huh uh! They'll just use Linux!" remember Grandma May and Steve The Jock whos idea of bleeding edge technology is AOL on their iMac.

Linux isn't for everyone. Now, before you flame me to north dakota and back, i like linux. I'm using linux right now. But linux can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Yes, you can install redhat 7 in 5 minutes without knowing much about your computer, but do you really think that Grandma wants to learn the directory structure, or that Joe will be awed by the power of the command line? No.. they want to plug the computer in (with as few wires as is possible), turn it on, and have a bright and cheery GUI with nice big buttons staring back at them.

Much as i hate it, idiots are the majority in the modern world. When you think about things like the effects of an MS breakup on the market, you have to remember that the reason MS has a monopoly is that there are enough idiots out there to have put them there.
Dreamweaver