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Microsoft Profit and Loss by Business Area
An anonymous submitter writes "The Register is reporting in this article striking new evidence of what in my opinion can only be described as abuse of their monopoly position. A recent SEC filing shows that they lose money in every business area except Windows (86% profit) and Office (79% profit)." Another notes that the Financial Times has a story on the same subject - Dr. No writes "According to the Financial Times, Microsoft's Windows division has a profit margin of 85%. This is the first time this figure has been made public." The full version of Windows XP costs about $300.00. Microsoft could sell it for $45 and still make a profit. The difference between the $45 price and the $300 price is what economists call "monopoly rents".
...of the MS products. You're getting a good deal.
Microsoft could sell it for $45 and still make a profit. Sure they could. Just like the RIAA could sell CDs for $5.95 and still make a profit. These guys make me sick!
At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
Red Hat Pro is up there as well, at $150...
That one division carries a company is NOT an abuse of their monopoly position. Keeping Netscape off the desktop with the threat of higher Windows licensing costs IS. Just because a company makes a profit in 1 area and loses in another doesn't make it abusive. And stop posting anonymously.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Come on who's posting this stuff? Essentially you're saying that you're okay with the monopoly but they shouldn't abuse it. That's crazy, but I guess that's what a monopoly can do to how people percieve the company. Microsoft can't innovate but they can dominate and they do that well. You try to keep quarter after quarter of growth in a company Microsoft's size and you too will find that you will have to do anything and everything.
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
where for some reason they needed to compete with linux on the desktop.... how hard would the linux sell be when windows is 45 bucks...
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The market has a way of working these things out. If MS charges too much, people won't buy the product, and their business model will fail. PEople forget that the consumer determines prices by choosing whether or not to buy. This $300 has been dictated by the consumer, and will only change when the consumer changes, monopolies have no bearing on this fact.
"Do something man. Right now."
Ever heard of Debeers?? Its the reason that you can have a 2000% much less 200% markup on diamonds, fucking cretin, research before posting!!
>>If MS really had a monopoly
dude, they were convicted in a court of law. even the biased judges agreed they had been abusing their monopoly.
They aren't charging $1000 a copy (or $2000, or more) because there is a limit people will stand-- in this area, at least (and perhaps only in this area). Joe Consumer won't care if you tell him "This OS is made by an evil candy-from-babies-stealing monopoly with flappin' heads and beady little eyes", but he WILL care if you say "Hey, did you see that new Windows on sale at Best Buy? It's a thousand bucks!"
I've found that most Americans remain quite apathetic to anything and everything, in general-- until you make it blindingly obvious that something will hit them in the wallet.
Saying "Windows is made by a monopolist" doesn't get them riled up.
Saying "Windows will now cost $1,000 a version" does.
Why? Simple. Since they feel that Windows is great, and therefore "worth" $300-- but $1000 gets it to the point where it's seriously impacting their finances. And that is where most Americans put their collective foot down.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Thus, it can subsidise its XBox and kill off the Sony/ Ninetendo et al by slowly strangling rather than producing the games/technology. Skinning us for cash when its got a grip that cant be shaken loose.
Of course, in a country where the Presidents brother can 'gerrymander' an election, and the President cowtows to the OilCorp - where the judiciary is too scared to tackle this behmoth, well, we shouldnt be amazed. We arent, are we?
Gritty.
Of course, the poster doesn't mention that
;-)
1) The server applications are also strongly in black.
2) These numbers do not reflect the cost of MS Research. MSR is costing Microsoft a hefty sum every year, and they actually do provide many interesting things, especially for Windows internals.
3) All the segments that are in red are relatively new (except MSN). In the tech industry it is very common for new products to produce a loss for the first few years. Why should be any different for MS?
But hey, don't let a few insignificant facts distract you from waging a holy war
When men used to be men
First of all, MS isn't "acting like a capitalist"-- you're right on that accusation-- but they are certainly not acting like a welfare agency. Depending upon which aspects of MS's business plan you dislike the most, they are acting like "a software racket" (think of the Mafia's control of certain industries-- like that, only without all the guns and cement shoes and stuff
The free market. It's not free if one company runs the show (almost) by their lonesome.
Competition. (See above)
Competing on quality and price, not marketing.
At least, that's how the "classical capitalists" would have it-- people like Adam Smith and whatnot.
In any case, MS's behavior in the past decade or so has been sort of a twisted mockery of what capitalism is "supposed to be". Look at what ths Soviets did to socialism-- twisted it into a monstrous nightmare. MS is doing roughly the same thing to capitalism-- wrecking it.
They are most certainly not anything to do with welfare...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I'll put it simply.
;) ) was "Well, there goes the MS case... they'll be let off with a relative slap on the wrist."
The courts did not fail-- by their current definition of failure.
A more pro-Microsoft administration succeeded the previous one in the Federal government. Their idea of "failure" would be if MS did suffer.
When Bush took the white house, one of the first things I thought (after "Oh, shit!"
Which was, by most observers' assessments, just what happened...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
When you're a monopoly, yes it is.
Again, when your entire multi-billion-dollar monopoly which has widespread penetration in many markets is being supported by two out of thousands of products... that's abuse.
The key is that this isn't just any company. Sure, a normal company might choose to try their hand at a new market, supporting it with profits from another. But this is a monopoly, and they're using their monopoly to gain marketshare in other markets. All the other markets! This is the definition of such abuse.
Summary: do not compare this to "any other company". Whey we're dealing with a monopoly, the rules are different.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
striking new evidence of what in my opinion can only be described as abuse of their monopoly position
Every piece of proprietary software that makes a profit is in exactly the same position. So why pick on just Microsoft? The monopoly isn't limited to Microsoft, but available to anyone that has a copyright.
I know it's fun picking on Microsoft, especially after some of the stupid stunts they've been pulling, but before you start waving evidence around, stop to think about what it means.
One example: Ximian Connector. Proprietary software. Currently selling for $69 single user. If Ximian can sell this piece of non-free software for $39 instead of $69 and still make a profit, then Ximian is a monopoly!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That's just an outright lie. Do you know what a monopoly is? It is one company selling one product that has absolutely no close alternatives. Is that to say that nobody on Slashdot uses Linux, or MacOS?
Honestly, your inflammatory editorializing and FUD are giving the Open Source community a bad name. Most of the rest of us, as you may have noticed, are not a bunch of whining, ill-informed teenagers.
--sdem
Microsoft charges a price they believe the market will bear. They don't charge $1000 a copy because people wouldn't stand for that. That isn't to say the price could creep up to close $1000 in a few years (provided they will still be in the OS business). Actually, this issue is already covered in Judge Jackson's finding of fact in 1999. See this.
Notice in particular the first sentence (emphasis mine):
And this is all from 1999! How much have they (not) changed in three years?
It's a "will consumers ever grow a spine and tell Microsoft to take a flying leap" issue. I realize the alternatives may entail an initial cost outlay over and above the current licensing (for businesses, anyway), but it is my opinion that this will yield significant benefits over the long term. I personally wouldn't mind seeing Bill Gates in a position where he's asking what Microsoft can do to be of greater value to consumers, and hopefully stay in business. But until the spine issue is resolved, this will remain little more than wishful thinking.
<JessLeah casts 'Dispel Troll' and recites:>
1) One small good deed does not cancel out many large bad deeds.
2) IE is actually not a buggy piece of anything-- I personally think it's quite nice. I merely dislike it because of the morals of the people making/pushing it.
3) Putting words in my mouth does not mean I agree with them. There will always be situations where companies will release some things at a loss or for free-- it's the concept of the "loss leader". Look at how many video game companies routinely lose GOBS of money underselling their consoles. They make their money on the cartridges/CDs. That's a very common and acceptable course of action.
Do you really think your cell phone company (assuming you have a cell phone) makes money off of the sale of cell phones?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Microsoft is leveraging their high prices to enable them to give away other products, thus undercutting their competition. If Microsoft didn't require their overcharging in order to charge lower prices on their other products, you wouldn't hear many complaints on the lower priced goods.
Microsoft is aggresively entering new markets because, when you own 99.9% of one market, further growth in that market can only take place at the rate of growth of the market. And since the OS market is realtiely mature, it does not grow as fast as other, emerging markets. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it has nothing to do with linux being a "major" competitor...
Hi, The truth is, one of the key components one looks at is net income (how much money comes to you), and not core earnings (profits). If the net income growth is vectoring upwards, and profits are still positive, that company is good for the long term: this is a 'successfully managed company'. Think of it this way: a company that makes $1.00 a year on revenues of 1B is frequently "worth more" than one that makes $1M on revenues of 10M, since you can almost _always_ manage your way smaller (tighten expenses, cost-of-doing-business, etc), and it's really hard to manage your way larger: if the money isn't already moving through you to begin with, you have to 'do something hard', like make a new product, invent something, a new service, to bring the money to you. The fact that most of these business areas are raking in the revenue means that they really are 'investing', instead of merely taking the loss to bend the market to their will. For instance, they spent 628M to make 531M: you don't think they could cut out 100M on MSN to make it profitable, or at least not a loss? They surely could, but I bet that they would harm their long-term growth of income. XBox is a little egregious: made 505M, spent 682M. CE/Mobility is just right for a 'start-up': made 17M, spent 40M. Now, if these continue for several years at these levels, then you might question, but XBox is relatively new, CE/MObility has become 'hot' recently, MSN probably doubles as a way to defray (hide) some of their existing costs (hosting microsoft.com, msdn, etc) that might be associated with other business units, etc. -J
This begs the question then: why are Microsoft making all of their future file formats XML?
:/
I don't agree with all of Microsofts efforts but I think this looks like a pretty good effort to work and play well with others. However, knowing Microsoft's history I think that this is likely a ploy to gain more market share.
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
Actually you did pay for windoze, ever hear of the M$ Tax? That computer would have been about 100 USD cheaper if it hadn't shipped with windoze.
Microsoft's playthings like XBox and WinCE will never be profitable.
Or to put it in words you understand:
ALL divisions at Microsoft are dependent on Windows and Office. With people refusing to upgrade and/or migrating to OpenOffice and Linux, ***** ALL ****** Microsoft products are endangered. - Sooner than you might think.
Expect the MSFT-shares to drop a bit in price over the next days. Shareholders don't like being lied to - they also don't like a company that is picking up losing ventures one after another (most recently and most serious is XBox. Sold about half as many units as Microsoft expected and promised - at a higher loss than expected.)
It's no coincidence that Bill Gates sells thousands of shares each week. He knows that even after all the beating the MSFT-stock received, it's still overpriced.
Microsoft's problem is that without happy shareholders, all their tax-stock-option loopholes don't work anymore. And without them, they would make losses - RIGHT NOW.
Always remember: The most profitable product Microsoft sells is not Windows and not Office, it's MSFT-stock.
A lot of businesses have that much markup.
Like Hell. Markup is NOT the same thing as profit.
Profit is equal to revenues minus the cost of manufacturing and minus the cost of sales admin and R&D. Markup is the increase percentage of cost of goods (i.e. manufacturing cost) to reach the selling price.
Most businesses have to have 80% markup to just break even. In the US the average business makes about 10% profit on a 80-100% markup.
Do you think I can buy a computer cable for $5 from Tiawan, mark it up and 100% and sell it to you for $10 and make a 100% profit? No friggin way. I still have to pay inventory carrying costs, rent on the warehouse, salaries and benefits of my bookkeeper and shipping clerks, taxes and so on.
What Microsoft has to do is sell their product at a price that is about 7 times what their manufacturing, sale, admin and R&D cost is to achieve an 86% profit. If we assume that their sales,admin,R&D costs are essentially the same as their manufacturing cost (typical for most companies), that means Microsoft's markup is 1400%, or fourteen times what the typical US business markup is.
Microsoft has been, and continues to be the most profitable (as a percentage of sales) large organization in the world. Major products like Windows with it's 86% profit exceed any other known large scale product in profitability. And that includes products like cocaine sold by drug cartels that only averages a 50% profit margin, and the patented pharmaceuticals that people on this site whine about so much.
THE ONLY CONCIEVEABLE WAY THAT MICROSOFT CAN MANTAIN SUCH PROFITS IS THROUGH PRICE GOUGING MADE POSSIBLE BY A MONOPOLY.
It seems to me that MS should be worried by these figures. They have a whole load of different products but only Windows and Office actually make them any money? We're not talking just Xbox here, this is MSNBC, MSN, PocketPC, VisualStudio, Consulting, etc. They've busted there butts trying to diversify for the last ten years and have come up with zero to show for it. Whether they are a monopoly or not is not the point. The point is that they have a huge sled and only two dogs are pulling it. If something should happen to Windows and Office, say Linux and OpenOffice, they would have nothing left to fall back on. Yea, they have a ton of money in the bank to keep them going for a few years but they'll have to work hard at finding something else to do for a living.
I hate the abusive stuff MS pulls as much as the next person. The only way things will change is put your money where your mouth is. As other's have said, buy computers using other OS or software. If you're really that fed up, then switch.
Consumers do have a choice at present
OK, call up Gateway and try to get them to sell you a computer without Windows pre-installed. Can't do it, can you? Or try running over to Best Buy and getting a computer without Windows on it.
Or try buying a Sony laptop without Windows installed on it.
The fact is that consumers do not and will not have a choice until the have the freedom to purchase any computer they want WITHOUT Windows installed on it.
Right now Microsoft has the market sewn up with these pre-installs to the point where consumers do not have a choice.
MS gives out IE for free, that's anti-competetive?
Boy. You don't even kind of get it, do you?
Giving away software isn't what makes MicroSoft a monopoly. Using their leverage as THE MAIN supplier of household Operating Systems to distribute this software, to the exclusion of others, with a toehold in the OS that other browsers will not have and then, ultimately, claiming that the browser is INEXTRICABLY intertwined with the OS -- all of these things are what make MS a monopoly.
Repeat after me: It's not giving away software, it's unfairly using an advantage and obstructing others that makes MicroSoft a monopoly.
I don't think most people would care if MS kept to standards, but that's another story.
The opposite of progress is congress
When any one company can afford to loose billions of dollars running other companies out of business while creating inferior products
Its funny how the typical slashdotter throws all reason out the window when it comes to Microsoft.
First point, they are not loosing billions and billions of dollars. Microsoft is one of the most profitable companies out there. The fact of the matter is that every company out there has a cash cow product that funds the research and development of other products. If it were a requirement that everything that every company made was profitable from the first day they started making it, we would still be riding in horse and buggy carriages.
Why can't you see that the reason that Microsoft has such a dominant market presence today is because they make software that people want. When you sit and complain that the consumer does not have a choice you are only saying that the alternatives that you champion so much are the inferior products. There are Microsoft alternatives with every product they sell, and the reason they are successful is because 95% of all consumers choose Microsoft over the alternatives. This is no "monopoly rent". I guarantee that if they were charging more than people were willing to pay, they would no longer be the most popular software company out there.
..it's called "Employee Stock Options", and it's sold to Microsoft Employees in exchange for them receiving an otherwise mediocre wage.
When the price of the stock goes down, it ends up either increasing the real money that MS has to pay, or increasing the number of stock options they pay. Of course, the latter means that actually everybody's stock is slightly devalued, it's just that the ponzi effects haven't shown up yet.
Should the stock start to drop quickly, I'm betting the amount it will drop will be staggering as all of those employee shares start flooding onto the market.
When the MS bubble finally bursts (and if the company never pays dividends, sooner or later it will, just like any ponzi scheme) it's going to be sheer hell on the economy.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Actually, YOU don't seem to understand the basic definition of a monopoly. MS has a monopoly because the court found that there was not a viable competitor in the market - they have exclusive possesion or control of the desktop OS market.
The "abuse" of that monopoly (using monopoly power to leverage other business in a way that gives MS an unfair advantage) is the illegal part.
While I agree that "most people" don't care if MS used standards, I would bet that "most computer professionals" DO care, yet due to the monopoly issue can do very little about it. MS's failure to adhere to standards (and the embrace and extend practice) makes it REALLY flippin hard to interface MS systems to other non-MS systems.
I think what we are looking at here is some sort of economic evolution. You will notice that Microsoft's most mature products (office and Windows) are profit leaders. However, loss leaders will be products that some day (maybe 5 years) will bear the fruit grown in the soil rich with competitor's blood. Once all of the competition for browsers, or Database servers are dead, they can crank up the profit margin on those products, as all of the competition has been swallowed, killed, or discredited by FUD.
The real unanswered question is whether this is a death knell or call to arms.
Ms will effectively own your pc at the hardware level and you all will pay a monthly bill to use it. It's inevitable and will be the fact of life in a couple years. Linux will be effectivly dead in the pc market and ms will double there current prices for windows and office and still sell it cheap if you chose to rent it. Joe consumer will think MS office is standard because its better and not because ms crippled all pc hardware. Ask any user who makes the best software and %90 will say Microsoft. They do not and will not know any better and it wont matter how good OpenOffice is.
http://saveie6.com/
First, there were about 10 people who made points like these: Mcdonald's charges $1.25 for a large coke when it only costs them $0.03. Diamond retailers have a 200% markup. Vending machines sell coke for $0.75/can when it costs $0.10 to manufacture. Look at how big their profit margins are! And so on...
The profit margins at Mcdonald's, jewelry retailers, and vending machine companies are very low. You have to take into account all the costs in calculating profit. Mcdonald's only pays $0.03 for the coke they are selling you, but they paid over $1 million for the building in which they are selling it to you, and over $200k/yr for employees in that building, plus costs for managers and benefits, to say nothing of corporate expenses, advertisements, and so on. Retail jewelry stores fail more often than any other kind of store. Sure, they charge a 100% markup, but they get like 2 paying customers per day, for which they must pay rent on a store and employees' salaries, etc.
An 89% profit margin is extremely unusual. IIRC, the average profit margin in American business is around 4%. The only other large companies that take anywhere near that profit are drug companies, right after marketing a "blockbuster drug" where there few competitive alternatives.
This decision didn't come from the administration, it came from a judge. True, judges are appointed by the President, but Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was appointed to the United States District Court in 1997, over three years before the current administration was inaugurated. Only Congress can impeach a judge, so I don't understand how the current administration could possibly have affected the outcome of this case.
grep -ri 'should work'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft's playthings like XBox and WinCE will never be profitable.
/.) predict that many of Microsofts ventures will be profitable.
How does such rubbish get a +5? NONE of us know whether or not they will be profitable, and people who actually study business (or who at least have a basic understanding of business, unlike many here at
Microsoft's problem is that without happy shareholders, all their tax-stock-option loopholes don't work anymore.
NEWSFLASH - Companies rely on happy shareholders. Please, got back to school.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Hold on -- the problem with comparing the $300 list price with the 85% profit margin at first blush appears to be that, of course, copies are sold at every price from $300 down to whatever bulk OEM bundling deal might be hammered out.
However, that misses the point altogether of a margin: an 85% profit margin is always an 85% margin. 85% tells you what fraction of the take, and it's a big take, is characterized as profit. And 85%, especially given the VOLUME we're talking here, is staggering. 85% suggests you've either got a product that it unusual and special and hot and patented or hard to imitate, or that something fishy is going on.
You almost want to ask, why don't they spin off the Windows division? Well, we know that the Windows division bankrolls other, future plans of the Microsoft Corporation as it casts about trying to provide for its ongoing viability.
As for the relevance of monopoly, easy, it raises the highest price that the market will tolerate by imposing illegal constraints on the market finding something better. It's the essential reason that a monopoly is desirable. Think of it as getting a higher price from your customer with a handshake and a gun than a handshake alone. Simple as that, and just as illegal.
I notice that a GeForce 3 class video card is conspicuously absent from your numbers. As is a DVD-Rom drive. And I suspect that the X-Box's unified memory architecture requires faster, more expensive RAM then you're using.
I happen to know another company with a negative cash flow in most divisions. Actually, all divisions. It's VA Linux, and they're burning up money (from VCs and the IPO). Does that make them evil? Nope. Capitalism is about investing money (and taking a loss here and now) in the hopes of achieving profits in the future. It cost a lot of money to develop SourceForge (and all those star wars ripoff ads!), but now that it's developed, maybe they'll be able to sell it for large amounts of money.
Why is it different for MS? Because they don't need to seek outside VCs or do an IPO to create MSN or MSNBC or XBox? Or because someone has a hard on for them?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Small correction.
In terms of Perfect Competition, Price = Marginal Cost. (P = MC)
In terms of Monopoly pricing, Marginal Revenue (MR) = Marginal Cost (MC). Solve for Quantity (Q*), and plug that into Price (P).
Price cannot equal Marginal Revenue as they are two different curves. For example:
if P = 100 - 2Q
Total Revenue (TR) = P*Q
TR = (100 - 2Q)(Q)
TR = 100Q - 2Q^2
MR = dTR/dQ
MR = 100 - 4Q
Now, in order practice price discrimination the monopolist must (1) rule out arbitrage and (2) be able to classify customers.
To maximize profits the monopolist should increase the price paid by customers with an inelastic demand and decrease the price paid by customers with an elastic demand.
Price discrimination will increase profits but unit sales are unaffected.
Microsoft definitely has a monopoly. But it is not illegal to be a monopoly. It is illegal to use monopoly power in certain ways, and neither I nor the vast majority of the SlashDot crowd is anywhere near capable of determining what behavior by a monopoly is legal and what behavior is illegal.
Homework assignment: go read the complete trial history of 7 major monopoly trials. After that, I'll listen to your opinions about how illegal Microsoft is. Until then, don't take it upon yourself to determine how illegal and evil Microsoft is.
Microsoft has done something that no other industry could do: provide a platform compelling enough to allow it to continue to make 85% profit margins even in the face of fairly strong competition being given away for free. People want/need/think they need Windows and Office. And maybe they don't just get it because they are ignorant masses. Perhaps they get it because it provides some things that nothing else can.
First, it is pretty tough to say exactly what it cost to produce Windows. We can see how much Bill spent on employees in the Windows division last year versus the profits that Windows sales brought. But Last Year's work on Windows isn't what made people want to make Last Year's Windows purchases. It was the work of years of figuring out how to make Windows valuable. A lot of this was research (which loses money). Some of this is peripheral applications (which lose money) -- without them available, nobody would want to buy Windows.
Now in doing this, Microsoft has stepped into controversial territory. Instead of under-pricing to take over a market, they are under-pricing to ensure the survival of another market. Those are different things. Predatory pricing is illegal, but the other hasn't been completely evaluated in court (AFAIK). Perhaps they are both wrong, perhaps only one. (Although it is likely that the real answer is that you can't really have one without the other, so maybe the question is moot.)
But I suggest that instead of yelling about how evil (aka very effective at doing what companies are supposed to do -- make a profit) and mean (aka looking out for themselves instead of their competition) Microsoft is, and how all Microsofties should go to jail, I would much rather focus on topics more grounded in reality:
What is Microsoft doing that Open Source isn't? How can we start doing this better without abandoning our values?
Should this practice of non-predatory undercutting be legal? It has definite advantages for some people (even not counting Microsoft), and definite disadvantages for some people. Is it different, as I asserted earlier, or is it the same as the normal predatory price undercutting?
What population is most hurt by this practice? Can Linux fill this need? Should we work to make this happen, or would it be better to chase the more mainstream population?
What do we need to do to shore up Linux's environment in the same way that Microsoft shores up Windows' environment?
The mindless repetition of whining and flaming of Microsoft every time any article about them comes out won't get anybody anywhere. Lets talk about something intelligent for a change. Please?
Thanks.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Bottled water seems to keep selling even through tap water is basically "free". Some people will pay for what they perceive as quality even given a free alternative.
From the FAQ
/. article, then why should Microsoft feel threatened by AOL Time-Warner?
Infact, are their any companies which are in a posistion to try and create an OS for the PC home market which could compete with Microsoft?
"One of the facts that this myth ignores is the role of the capital markets in a free economy. So long as investors are left free from government controls, they are free to bring an unlimited amount of new capital into any given industry. Thus, for example, a software company that has built its way up to a $400 billion market capitalization over a period of twenty years (Microsoft), may suddenly face, almost overnight, a $350 billion rival (AOL Time Warner)--thanks to the free capital markets that make such a merger possible."
Remind me, are AOL Time-Warner making Operating Systmens? Or are they making products to run on Microsofts OS's, I.e. complimenting rather than competing with Microsoft. And if Microsoft makes money off it's OS and Office exclusively, as shown in the
The answer, is no there isn't. Other companies do not have the commercial influence to threaten Microsofts posisiton in the OS market.
A bicycle is a viable alternative to a car. Unless you work a long way from home or have to bring new furniture home, or have kids to drop off at daycare, or live someplace where it snows a lot.
So a bicylce is a viable alternative to a car, but there's lots of caveats.
Going naked is a viable alternative to clothing. Unless you're not a supermodel, or want to leave the house, or own lots of mirrors, or don't like to get arrested.
The Linux/Windows thing is not a true paradox. Linux is a viable alternative to Windows as long as your work doesn't require Windows, you don't want to play any of the games only available on Windows, you don't need any of the apps only available on Windows, and you're willing to spend a little time when things don't work right out of the box.
If you lost your car for some reason, you could probably get by: friends, bike, public transportation, taxi, rentals. If you lost Windows, you could probably get by - most Windows apps have an equivalent on Linux, and those that don't you could get from a friend's PC or at work or maybe on a Mac. We generally don't have to make the either/or choice, but we could if we just weren't so lazy/set in our ways.
Not a true paradox, but funny, I guess.