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Annual Cost of Microsoft Monopoly: $10 Billion
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's deals with major PC vendors lock users out from alternative options, such as Linux. A recent whitepaper calculates that the cost to industry of this Microsoft monopoly is $10 billion per year."
This is what happens when a near-monopoly is allowed to thrive...it costs everyone.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Until the penalties outweigh the revenue, what's going to make MS stop? This 300lb gorilla is going to keep stomping on the little people (Linux, FreeBSD and otherS) unless something changes. In addition... Even if this didn't exist MS still has a stranglehold on the software available for personal computers, everything from Games to Applications. That's the next hurdle.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
Poor apple topic sandwiched between two microsoft topics...
I predict apple juice.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
The reason that Microsoft losing share to these other OS's is because unlike the #1 fastest growing company(Apple) they don't manufacture hardware.
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
Where do they come up with a figure like that? Put on a blindfold and throw a dart? That's ridiculous. It probably does cost the industry, but the fact that they have to come up with a number at all demonstrates some level of bias here.
...is anyone honestly surprised? I spend at least half my day trying to patch together 2-year old windows machines... and that's not even what they hired me for. Really cuts into the time I can put in coding...
right from the community chest. That's a lot of little green houses and red hotels.
Reading articles like this, I often wonder if Bill Gates has managed to delude himself into thinking he's doing good for the industry, of if he actually knows what an evil, vicious spawn he's created?
Also, if Bill Gates would dissapear tomorrow, would the balls necessary to defy the US Government, other larger organizations go as well? I often think that perhaps the rest of the company doesn't have the nerve to go toe to toe like their head does...
I pity the thimble that lands there!
10
20 Print "Balls To That"
Well you can't blame Microsoft (flame me) but it's a business world.
What does your Credit Report look like?
tomorrow's "completely spurious number pulled out of our asses" will 17 Swiss Francs.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The Windows monopoly saves the world at least $500 billion a year in compatibility costs.
The pressure from Microsoft on OEMs is very, very well know. Would it be tolerated in any other industry? Absolutely not, but there's a tendency from people to think that that's just the way things are when it comes to computers unfortunately.
This claim makes no more sense than claiming that the industry loses $10 billion to piracy.
Um, how is Microsoft stopping people from using Linux, Solaris, OSX etc? This is like saying Coke locks you out of drinking Pepsi. Just becuase not all vendors offer all choices does NOT mean that there are no other options.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Is this 10B AU or 10B US dollars? If it's AU, then it's about 7.5B US.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
The vendors laugh and a hush falls over the Redmond conference table. "Fine," replies Bill, calmly stroking the cat before deftly returning his pinky to his lips, "One hundred Beeeellion dollars!"
"Shit," reply the executives.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The "doors" paradigm means that each and every program runs in its own little door.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Since the sidebar was the only thing that would load:
"linux support - get penguin powered" [...] "training - for linux administration and web development" [...] "development - apps for linux, unix, windows and the web"
How shocking that a company which sells training, support, and development services for both Linux and Windows would come out with an inflammatory article.
Why, they couldn't possibly have ulterior motives! Nothing like a bit of viral marketing.
Please help metamoderate.
that we could've used that money for more zero-g water balloon experiments!!
If you look at copyrights as a microregulatory controll on how people use information, and not a free market property right like mindless mob would have you believe. Then it becomes clear that the real harm comes from that poor belief system, and all the rest is just a natural consequence of it being brought to it's logical conclusion.
No it's 758 Million USD.
But yea, that's like 42$. But really, what is 42$ USD? Like 13 eurocents?
HAHAHA TURNABOUT IS FAIR GAME!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Hm. So that's why Apple's marketshare has dropped by something like a factor of 10 in the last 20 years? Also, Apple's growth has nothing to do with Macs, and everything to do with iPods.
I own a powerbook, but it doesn't blind me, despite the glare from its beautiful silver finish.
The reason I don't use Linux is because I know it to be a much less intuitive system, but I'd struggle to refer to my choice for not using Linux as being locked out by Microsoft.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
article here You're welcome!
There are additional costs besides the direct economic costs this paper focused on. For example, there are various costs and risks associated with having an insecure OS as an industry standard. Microsoft also imposes various costs on the US as a whole via its business practices. For example, Microsoft is an exceptionally large user of the H-1b/L-1 programs that allow them to pay employees by facilitating US immigration rights instead of paying cash. Microsoft and its partners can broadly affect prevailing wages using this practice. Microsoft is also a major political player. Much of its activity is focused on maintaining its monopoly position-but that political activity isn't limited to that area-and has other attendent side effects.
Let me begin by saying I don't like Microsoft products. I think it's an evil, opportunistic company that is likely funded by Nazi gold, but....
Microsoft itself is not the real culprit here. If the cost to the industry is really 10 billion, then the threshold for establishing a monopoly should be met. The problem is no real enforcement of the Sherman Act or any of the other federal "calls to arms" against monopoly.
Like it or not, in capitalist society the message sent to business is to be as nasty as profitable and permitted. As long as consumers keep buying (maybe because they feel like they don't have a choice, and there is some argument there) and the government doesn't enforce its own laws (which is probably why consumers feel they have no choice), Microsoft can't be blamed overmuch.
In short (too late!), the problem isn't really the 300 lb. gorilla. It's just doing what gorillas do. The problem is the federal prosecutor with the tranq gun taking a nap.
AC....the time we waste at work on the internet! ~$750B.
-Randy
Dear Universities, Think Tanks, Consulting Agencies, and all other interested parties:
I would like to apply for the job of "Guy that pulls numbers out of his ass". I feel that my ability to pull numbers out of my ass qualifies me as an excellent candidate for this position. To demonstrate, please allow me to give some examples:
$4.3 Billion
$350k per year
$20.34 for every person in the United States
Please note how I was effortlessly able to adjust the meanings of the ass-pulled numbers by adding descriptive phrases, while still distancing the numbers from any real facts or statistics. I realize that it takes more than pulling numbers out of my ass to succeed in todays competitive white paper/consulting/propoganda market, and feel that I can be a great benefit to your company.
They said Australian Dollars, not Canadian Dollars.
Over the past decade, the personal computer industry has seen a major reduction in competition in the operating system platform market. A computer operating system platform is the software which computer users learn to operate their computer with, the software that independent software vendors develop applications for and the software that third-party computer hardware developers create compliant hardware for.
Competition in the desktop computer operating system space is practically non-existent, with one platform from a single supplier commanding a very high proportion (over 95%) of the Australian market. This single platform from a sole vendor is Microsoft Windows. Cybersource believes that a sizeable portion of this market share is due to the fact that over many years, most consumers were never given the option to acquire alternative operating system platforms. Instead, Microsoft Windows was always bundled with most vendors' computer products, whether consumers wanted that bundled product on not.
We have seen that the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has acted in the best interests of consumers to increase competition in such areas as telecommunications. Cybersource wants to see similar actions introduced in the computer operating system platform space.
In the software market, as in the telecommunications market, a single, powerful and well-leveraged vendor can cause the reduction of real competition and the corralling of almost all consumers into a single monopolistic platform situation. This causes significant reduction in choice, price competitiveness and innovation. Cybersource calls upon the ACCC to rectify this situation for the benefit of the local Information Technology industry and of all Australian IT consumers.
Key Points
1. It is impossible or extremely difficult for consumers to purchase a desktop PC or laptop from a tier-1 or tier-2 computer manufacturer without also having to purchase an OEM copy of Microsoft Windows operating system platform.
2. Cybersource believes that this greatly reduces choice for consumers and competition for the industry. Such a reduction in choice, and consequent reduction in competition, costs the Australian economy hundreds of millions of dollars annually, through paying one vendor needlessly high prices for monopolistic products.
3. The computer market is many ways similar to the telecommunications market. When one vendor has over 95% of the market, that vendor should be bound by a universal service obligation to ensure that all consumers can access the content, documents and data which reside on that vendor's platform. Neglecting such an obligation hinders all consumers and third-party developers not using that vendor's platform, further increasing anti-competitive pressures.
4. Cybersource believes that such anti-competitive practices should be stopped as soon as possible, through remedies introduced by the ACCC, to secure both a broader competitive base and increased options for consumers.
5. The first remedy that Cybersource seeks from the ACCC is that all tier-1 and tier-2 vendors should be required to offer their desktop and laptop products without an operating system pre-installed, that this choice be presented to consumers as broadly as the products themselves are, and that the price difference between the with and without operating system options should also be clearly and broadly presented at retail outlets, on vendor marketing literature and vendor websites.
6. The second remedy that Cybersource seeks from the ACCC is that Microsoft should be required to offer unfettered and unencumbered access to all major content, document, data and applications formats which could enable interchange and interoperability between users of its platform and users of other alternative platforms.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
MS profited $12B this year, and is expected to profit $15B next year. And they make $10B just from being a convicted criminal?
If only duh-byah hadn't quashed the anti-trust suit.
With a New PC system with OS-- easily available for under $500, I find this hard to believe. The price of a microsoft windows OEM install hasn't gone up considerably since the mid 90's, when there was a competing operating system (OS/2) available for about the same price.
I just don't feel they've taken the "good" parts of Microsoft's monopoly into account (kill me for saying that.) Considering all of the features included with the OS that we used to pay for-- Browser, media, utils, etc, Microsoft has "given" a lot to maintain their monopoly. While I support competition whole heartedly (and look forward to a day where I can "choose Mac OS to run on my custom intel hardware) I don't think this is an honest assesment. You get a LOT with what you pay for, and there hasn't even been a new version in 4 years. And they still support you with security fixes for FREE (all jokes aside).
Office is no more expensive now than when Word Perfect was still alive and kicking.. And the features keep coming. (Though I gladly use openOffice, myself.)
I think the worry should be "Let's not make this a total monopoly so one company can't hold all the keys to human technology in the future" rather than, man, they're screwing us out of cash.. because I think the sheer volume of units they ship actually causes the price to be CHEAPER, not more expensive.
I guess we'll only find out if Apple sucks it up and makes their OS able to work on Dells.
Here's a blantant example of how Microsoft has everyone in their pocket:
Dell Dimension 2400 w/ Windows XP = $299
Same PC w/ FreeDOS = $319
Now someone tell me how Microsoft prices Windows XP $20 cheaper than the same PC with a free operating system.
More
What a bias. This cost to the industry is a cooresponding savings to the consumer. Now if the argument is that by killing the little shops, people get less products to choose from and therefore a less rich feature set, we might have a different story.
isn't that about 666 Euros?
[caveat - I own MSFT and RHAT shares]
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Does that number include the lost productivity and downtime from downloading and installing security upgrades?
Get your tagline off my lawn.
Not only does MS sell thier OS to OEMs, but you can put together parts and install MS and it will run just fine. Apple restricts their OS to machines they build, and they charge top dollar, and yet they're beloved on /. and MS is the great evil.
What's even worse is we know Apple can run on PCs, and their proving that as we speak, and yet, when they switch over, they'll add an evil little chip to make sure your Mobo is one they sold you.
How's that for a monopoly?
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
ok, lets get this strait. microsoft has a monopoly. which costs "us" 10 billion per year.
now, since microsoft makes, what, 38 billion a year in revenue?
doesn't that mean they're _not_ a monopoly?
i mean if they made 10 billion a year, but costs us 100 billion, then that would imply they're leaching 90billion from us. if they're "costing us" 10, but making 10 or more, aren't they just being efficient?
The Windows monopoly saves the world at least $500 billion a year in compatibility costs.
...
That's only in India and China where 90 percent (conservative estimate) of all copies are pirated.
Your kilometerage may vary
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I'm sorry, but only a Microsoft shill would mod this parent redundant as is now at the time of this post.
I'd like a big mac, a large fries, and a bullshit statistic to go, please.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
The deals they make to certain companies require they sell windows exclusively or at a certain ratio. You proved it yourself. You say theres nothing stopping you from putting linux on a box that came with windows. But getting that box initially without ever paying for a copy of window and starting off with linux is ALOT harder.
Does that number include the lost productivity and downtime from downloading and installing security upgrades?
No, that's a feature.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How could someone have a monopoly over something that is free. It would be like a saying that the ma bells have a monopoly over a VOIP provider like Vonage. It is simply a matter of choice since anyone can download Linux and install it for virtually nothing. So the question is; Why do people pay for something they can get for nothing?
Actually, it's more like going to a restaurant and asking for a water. The waiter says, sorry we must charge you for a Coke (or Pepsi). If you want to then dump out the Coke and fill it with water, we will allow you to do that.
The point is that most OEM's still charge you the cost of MS Windows @%, whether or not you want it. Sure, you're free to wipe the hard-drive and install Linux, but it seems silly to pay that much money for software you have no intention of using. The reason that the OEM's do this is that they get a discount from MS on the base price of the OS if they do this. (Although perhaps this practice has been changed now due to pressure from the justice system.) Now, you can find some OEM's who will not do this, and I recommend doing so if all you want is Linux (or BSD, etc.).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Does that figure include the cost incurred by their culture of software neglect?
Should it?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Damn this kind of thing just burns me up. They were convicted of abusing their monopoly and harming the public.
Nothing has changed their practices... not even a little. They continue to do harm. I think they should be brought back into court for a REAL remedy. How can we start a petition to get the Justice Department to charge them for failing to abide by their terms and for continuing to do the things they were convicted of -- i.e. bundling MSIE and all that, and then add everything else we can think of as examples of wrong doing.
If we have a community that wants to see justice, someone who wants to get elected will see that justice is done.
You buy what is offered, or you can build perfictly decent PC grade boxes yourself. It's no big issue to me because I know that even without any OS, the OEM price for a PC will not go down. So why should I care?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
No one is locked out from Linux. Anyone who wants it can get it installed if they cannot do it themselves. Corporate customers have options that do not appear on the stock online store options and they can get Linux is they choose to from many vendors.
At worse you can only say you wasted money on a Windows license you will not use. However in truth that is an insignficant issue, dwarfed by the cost savings of your switch to Linux right? The cost of the Windows license is more of a political/philosophical irritation.
People don't choose MS over other OS's because they have no choice, they choose it because that is what they want. The claimed loss is bogus.
Frankly, because of previous market penetration and standardization by industry on Windows, there is no viable alternative desktop system. That's why linux's meager gains have been server side. That, and it is still too complex for most home users.
Apple, well like it or not people have and continue to choose windows because that is what they are familiar with and that is where the majority of home programs like games are aimed. Apple's OS may be the best mostly unused OS ever made, they may have good built-in apps, but they don't have much of an audience.
Claims that these OS's are fast growing are pointless. Both put together add up to less than 10 per cent of the PC's out there. That's not a very good number.
MS made hay in the 80's with windows because they successfully penetrated the corporate market which is where many people got their first exposure to computers. MS was smart there as it set them up for the dominance they now enjoy.
I am not, repeat not, exhonorating Microsoft from their well deserved association with evil. However, there are social benefits to the monolithic way computing power is presented through Windows. Despite all it's hassles and inadequacies, there are large masses of people who would not use computers were it not for Windows. People who can't program their VCR, and for whom anything beyond turning a key in their car is way too technical, can spend money over the internet because AOL runs under Windows. Talk about Loki joining up with Satan if you wish, but that's what the public values. In a society where third basemen are more valuable than brain surgeons, and the only Fields Medal they care about is the lawnmower blade that trims the fifty yard line, the culture rewards what the culture most values. Bill is the uberlord of an evil empire because he provides a benefit that society wants, and the ultimate proof of it is in his bank account. That benefit should be factored into these equations as well, but it never is. Sure, I think most computer power is wasted playing solitaire, or downloading music that I personally don't like, but who am I to judge? Those are benefits that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, and the mass market made up of the common little people wouldn't be there without Windows.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
You're correct, there's nothing stopping you from replacing Win2k with RHEL.
But you probably already paid for the Win2k when you bought the server, didn't you?
Plenty of rant about monopolies and why they're bad, but no info about how they came up with the $10B number.
Don't get me wrong - I'm sure it's at least this much. Hell, if something as simple as an email virus is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars of productivity lost from users around the world having to press the Delete key, then yeah. MS and all the spyware/malware/worms/virii that comes with it would be in the billions, easy. That's what you get with a monoculture. Reminds me of the Gros Michel banana.
But without some sort of info about where the $10B estimate comes from, it's not very useful. You don't know if there are a roomful of industry insiders running simulations on huge mainframes, or some idiot with a dartboard. There is a difference. Hopefully.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But: every time there's a new study on how "piracy costs the music industry N dollars", where N is the estimated number of piracy incidents times the average suggested retail price of the pirated materials, there is universal outrage. "That's fallacious," we cry, "it assumes that every incident of piracy would have otherwise been a retail purchase at full price!". And we are right to make that claim.
However, here's a study that exercises a similar fallacy, and yet the outrage goes in the other direction. (and yes, I know this doesn't apply to everyone... I'm generalizing).
We can't assume, if the major vendors decided to stop bundling Windows/Office tomorrow, that any significant number of people would happily explore alternative options and be just as satisfied.
We can't assume, had Microsoft gone belly-up nine years ago, that people would have been perfectly content to start figuring out monitor sync rates and which filesystems with which to partition and format their hard drives.
We can't assume that all the unwashed masses would've just gone to Apple; we can't assume they would've been able to afford it; we can't assume Apple's products would've advanced at the rate they have without the pressure of being the "underdog". And since the premise of this "study" (though I am loathe to call it that) is that of the cost of a monopoly, we can't assume Apple (or Linux, or whatever) "winning" the market would've been any better.
Like it or not, Microsoft's presence and market dominance is an inextricable part of computing history. There is no way of even remotely predicting how the last twenty years would have panned out without it. And despite its grandiose claims, the authors of this article don't even seem to have bothered trying.
Isn't this exactly the kind of business practice which has landed Intel in hot water with the Japanese (and may soon give them similar problems witht the EU)?
Just one potential example - the Office add-on for automating collection letters they tried to develop a few years ago - with a "phone-home" back door. The beta testers were really enthused about having their receivables being logged by the mother ship. How much did it cost the participants to train people to use it, then UN-train them and re-enter everything back in their old systems?
Who knows? Only time will tell what the true cost is.
You forgot a zero. That's 7.5 Billion USD.
and $42 US Dollar = 34.80278 Euro
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
Is that $10 billion figure net costs or gross costs? If gross, then what are the benefits from same? Isn't that relevant? If something has a $10 gross cost and a $20 gross benefit, that's a net $10 benefit.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
So you admit to paying the M$ tax before loading linux? ...and act like this is a good thing?
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
I'll refer to the post I just made a few minutes ago in the Windows security patches and piracy thread:
1 67011
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157042&cid=13
Funny how discussing Windows, security and the Microsoft monopoly goes hand-in-hand....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Some things never change. The Slashdot crowd is still playing the blame game, working on the assumption that if Windows didn't have a large monopoly, Linux usage would be more widespread.
Still ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people just don't want to use Linux even if given a choice, because it still has serious usability issues that show no signs of being solved. Mostly because even though it is "one OS" it still suffers from the fragmentation that killed UNIX as a viable platform. Instead of kernel/system call fragmentation, it is fragmentation of desktops (KDE, Gnome, etc) and services (different print systems, different X servers, different window managers, each with slightly incompatible ways to cut & paste, etc).
Not to mention how much easier it is for developers to develop for Windows due to the fact that you don't have to worry about a billion different differences between distros, libc versions, kernel branches, etc.
But go ahead and keep blaming Microsoft's business practices... why stop now? It is easier than trying to actually compete for users.
How can Microsoft's deals with anyone "lock users out" of alternative options? Anyone who wants can download a Linux distro...
How can you say people are locked into a cable TV monopoly. Just because every TV comes with a free lifetime subscription to cable (included in the price of TVs) does not mean you can't buy a satellite subscription or even hook up an antenna and get that free TV people broadcast over the air.
Still don't see the problem?
Gates donates at least half that amount to charity.
I don't know the figures from the Microsoft corporation (or their charitable employee matching programs etc...) but I'd assume they contribute enough in combination with Bill to surpass that 10 billion.
I just thought it was interesting and as others have pointed out, it's not all an evil conspiracy with no redeming public value.
From http://theai.net/injustice.html (an ostensibly pro-MS site):
The problem here is the strong-arm tactics being used against the OEM. Again, things might have changed since the Justice suit, but these tactics are partially responsible for the quasi-Monopoly that MS now has.
Make sure you read that blurb carefully - MS charged (and maybe still does charge) the vendors for every machine the vendor sold, whether or not the vendor put MS on it. That cost is naturally passed on to the consumer. The OEM is not charging you for Windows directly, but they are charging you indirectly.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I call dupe of this joke! Damn.
the economic and impact of worker mistreatment around the globe in manufacture of products to the US costs $10 trillion a year. Seriously, folks, you can write a whitepaper about anything.
It explains why this isn't profitable - or at least why it didn't use to be profitable. (Things might have changed with the Justice suite.) In essence, if you want to sell PCs without MS Windows, you'd better be prepared to not sell any PCs with MS Windows! So, you can either lock yourself into a 5% market, or be allowed to deal with the 95% market. There are people who deal with the 5%, naturally, but this kind of practice makes it harder on them.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I believe he did. Wow. You learn a new word every day (or at least a new spelling of an old word here on slashdot.)
Clearly I forgot to equip my +5 Codpiece of Karma.
Given that a bigger part of the professional programming population spends a good deal of its time working around the non conformity of Microsoft web browsers to W3C standards and trying to reverse engineer Microsoft protocol descriptions right out of the fairy tale real, I would say the annual cost of the Microsoft monopoly is much bigger. If Microsoft had to pay pack all the costs caused by their behavior and their monopoly even with 50 billion+ in the bank they probably would be bankrupt in a handful of years.
You could just stay home and cook your own food. The point is that this practice is/was anti-competitive. For people who actually were selling other operating systems, they were definitely out of luck. If you're not familiar with anti-monopoly laws, and the history behind them, I'd strongly recommend it. It helps put Microsoft's practices in an interesting light.
I'm not completely anti-Microsoft, btw. I'm just pointing out how forcing vendors to pay for a copy of MS Windows for every PC they sell, regardless of whether the customer wants Windows on that PC or even whether the PC has Windows, falls into the category of anti-competitive.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Let's see, produce 50+ distros of a command line-based OS, all with different support levels, klunkly (and ugly) user interfaces and package installation mechanisms, and couple that with an innovative marketing campaign consisting of whiny, sniveling teenagers screaming "M$ SUX", and my GOD, you just HAVE to conclude that Microsoft's Monopoly STILL HOLDS!
Microsoft is a software OS vendor, one of few.
Apple is not a convicted monopolist.
Microsoft is.
There's your answer as to why Apple is not a "worse monopoly." They aren't even a monopoly! They are a hardware vendor with software for their hardware. You are welcome to put a Linux variant on their hardware instead. You are welcome to buy from many other hardware vendors instead.
I'm sick of this type of argument, usually seen in political circles. Target A gets caught doing some harm, so partisan followers change the subject with "Yeah? Well Target B is just as bad, so let's talk about them instead." How about we just keep talking about Target A, the subject at hand.
"and is a major factor in why it is so widely pirated."
I tend to disagree - I think the reason so much software is pirated is because of the retarded prices. $600 for a copy of Office 2003 Pro non-upgrade? $1000+ for the Adobe CS package, or hundreds and hundreds more for each individually? $300 for Windows XP?
The only mainstream software out there that's resonably priced is games. Sure, $50 might seem like a lot for a single game, but for a game like Half Life 2 - it took those guys a long time and a crap load of development to get it shipped.
I understand the the audience is different, but really, unless you pirate software you gotta be rich to own anything besides Works, the OS that came on your PC, and some browser.
Just wait until Microsoft and Friends (TM) go and really lock down their software. It *can* be done fairly effectively if you're shitty about it, like how games are now a days (check out Steam, you'll frigging hate it.) Microsoft isn't going to get nicer, so it's going to happen. Wait 'til I tell my mom that the new printer she got only works with Windows whatever, and it costs $299 for the upgrade.. We'll see people seeking alternatives pretty furiously if and when it happens.
But that's where "trusted computing" and DRM comes in. Microsoft knows it wants to lock the hell out of your computer, and they know when they do it, it's going to piss off a LOT of people. So, they're doing everything they can to lock free software out before it happens. I dunno, maybe I'm seeing conspiracies here that aren't, but it just seems too obvious to me to dismiss.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
If Windows were on equal footing with BeOS, Amiga Workbench, and OS/2; if Word were on par with Wordperfect and AmiPro; and if Bill Gate and Steve Job saw eye to eye... Australia would be $200,000,000 richer? Not only that, but the differential between the cost of hardware and software would stay perpetually where it was in 1995?
Wouldn't training costs for sys admins and secretaries be higher if Windows and Word weren't de facto standards. Wouldn't developers be overworked if the market demanded every consumer program be ported for Atari ST and FreeBSD?
Isn't this whitepaper tantamount to saying Australia would save $234,670 million if only Spiro Agnew hadn't been convicted of tax evasion?
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
If I "wasted" money, it's only because I had no other options- I can't not get Windows on a machine for the large part. You can't either. That's really what they're on about. Used to, you'd buy the PC and the OS seperately so you could do with the machine what you wanted. Hell, if you wrote your own OS, you didn't even need to buy a thing other than the machine.
Nowadays, you can't buy a PC off the shelf without Windows XP on it unless you're buying from a specialty vendor; and in many cases, you're still paying for Windows, but the vendor selling you a "Linux system" burned it down and put Mandriva, Red Hat, SuSE, etc. on it before handing it to you. That, folks, is why a Non-Windows machine oftentimes is more expensive than a Windows machine- you're getting the privilege of installing and testing XP on the machine, and then paying for someone to burn it down and install your given Linux distribution choice on it.
THAT , I have a problem with- and it's no mere political/philosophical irritation. I have issues with being made to pay for something I don't want or have use for. I can use that money elsewhere, and it's roughly analogous to someone holding me at gunpoint and making me hand over $150 to them every time I buy a PC.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I just don't feel they've taken the "good" parts of Microsoft's monopoly into account (kill me for saying that.) Considering all of the features included with the OS that we used to pay for-- Browser, media, utils, etc, Microsoft has "given" a lot to maintain their monopoly. While I support competition whole heartedly (and look forward to a day where I can "choose Mac OS to run on my custom intel hardware) I don't think this is an honest assesment. You get a LOT with what you pay for, and there hasn't even been a new version in 4 years. And they still support you with security fixes for FREE (all jokes aside).
1) You used to pay for browsers and media tools? Since when? Quicktime pro is something you pay for but the basic quicktime has ALWAYS been free, and versions existed back in Windows 3.1. Netscape was free unless you were a business, and frankly the only people who paid were large businesses who cared. As for utils, I really can't think of much that was truly useful. The only useful utilities, ever, I could remember are both for Mac, Norton (which was good until OS X made it obsolete) and Techtool pro (which has a great interface for testing hardware and not just software, which is more useful).
2) Giving away things for free is BAD BAD BAD under a monopoly! It's been posted so many times that slashdotters who read microsoft articles should be able to recite the sherman anti-trust act and the subsequent laws by heart by now! Christ!
When a monopoly gives away something, they are trying to use their huge power and cash reserves to force the competition out of the market. Netscape is the key example. Netscape was trying to make money by making companies buy their web browser while giving it away for free to personal users. Well, microsoft undercut that and gave IE away for free. They used their considerable power in the OS to make a free product and undercut someone who could have legally competed with their own product. That's wrong, and that's illegal under US law.
And Microsoft didn't begin giving away anything substantial until I.E. anyway.
Now, Media player doesn't count here, because Quicktime and realplayer (if you can count real as competition) already give their media viewers away for free, so there's nothing to undercut.
Office is no more expensive now than when Word Perfect was still alive and kicking.. And the features keep coming. (Though I gladly use openOffice, myself.)
Bullshit, it's feature bloat, no reasonably good features have been introduced since Office 95 except to tighten down the security on their buggy visual macros, and Office costs around $500. My parents bought me the Apple II version of wordperfect for $50, and when I worked at a hospital installing software, business licenses were $20 an install (though there may be other contract fees but when you have to manage 7000 PCs I doubt the fees came out to a $500 a piece price tag, that's what volume discounts are for).
I think the worry should be "Let's not make this a total monopoly so one company can't hold all the keys to human technology in the future" rather than, man, they're screwing us out of cash.. because I think the sheer volume of units they ship actually causes the price to be CHEAPER, not more expensive.
You need economics 101. Monopolies do not follow standard supply and demand theories that competitive markets do. This is because they have total control of the market. They set the price to maximize their profit based on what they can get away with, not based on demand of their product.
However, in conclusion basic sentiment is, that as many figures are these days, they are overblown, and I would tend to agree with you. However I completely disagree that Microsoft has "provided value" to offset any additional costs of "goodness." Besides these figures are overblown anyway, you are coming at the whole thing from the wrong angle.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Supposedly the $10 billion applies worldwide. So if there are 4 billion people, that means my share is roughly $2.50.
But let's assume that it's only the US. $10 billion divided by 300 million people is $33.33. That's the price of dinner for two at Perkins.
But I figure that my salary as a developer is roughly double what it otherwise would be as a result of Microsoft's introduction of computers everywhere. That is, if we still had mainframes instead of PCs I'd be making at least half what I do now.
I won't reveal my salary... But I can assure you it's a lot more than $33 per year.
The only reason Microsoft is a monopoly is because those of us back in the 1980s who had to use a dozen different systems got fed up and decided to standardize on one. Microsoft happened to be there at the right time in the right place, and they keep producing stuff that we need/want... therefore we give them our money.
If they didn't meet our need, we'd go someplace else.
That's the nature of the market.
They are not breaking the law because they are not charging you for Windows without giving you Windows. They were passing on the cost of having Windows on that computer, whether or not you want Windows. It's a subtle difference, but a legal one.
Microsoft was breaking the law (in Justice's opinion) because they were forcing vendors to pay this cost whether or not the computer had Windows installed on it. That takes the "free" out of "free market".
Btw, if you're a fan of a truly free market (as in Microsoft should be allowed to coerce their vendors), then you probably would have been a fan of the lat 19th century economics before all of those pesky anti-monopoly (and anti-cartel) laws were passed.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Unless you decide to bite the bullet and buy some nice war-mongering oil baron religious fanatic into the White House to quash whatever the government is trying to do with it's force.
And then he did that thing with that stuff and it was like, wow...
If you want people to use your forum and add value to your service, then they need to trust that insightfull comments that they make will be appreciated and moded insightfull - and even more so they need to trust that they have reasonable protections from large corporate interests that might try to manipulate a forum's discussion or content.
Translation. You need to do something about the relentless modding down of anybody who attacks Microsoft and Microsoft's "intellectual property" regime. I have been posting here since 98 and have made over 1300 posts and know a baised interest when I see it, and at least since 2002 almost every post, without fail, that questions Microsoft's "intellectual property" regime has been attacked without reguard to how truthfull or insightfull it is. I'm sorry, but in this case it seems like the moderation system is just not working.
Please, again, I'm dying for anyone for anyone to explain to me how my parent post is redundant or overrated. And please, if you don't like what I'm saying, or think I'm just a loud mouth, then I beg you, kick me off of slashdot - it wouldn't hurt me to have an excuse to start my own blog.
Which is why I've tried to qualify most of what I say with was/is, etc. I'm sure there are those on /. who can fill us in, however. I believe these practices have changed, primarily, if not exclusively, due to the Justice anti-monopoly suit.
However, what happened in 1988 does still have a bearing on what happens in 2005, although in the computer business this is less true than in other businesses. That's the whole reason that some companies sell below cost (illegally). Once you've driven your competitors out of business you can raise the prices higher than they were with those pesky competitors around.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If we assume that neoclassical supply/demand economics sets market prices (a big assumption, but one you seem to be making) then we know that the market equilibrium price is determined by the intersection of the demand curve and the supply curve. The mere existence of a demand curve is no guarantee that a corresponding supply curve will develop at all, let alone one that will interesect with the demand curve at all.
Further, supply/demand price theory entails certain assumptions, including the the total freedom of entry into and exit out of all market segments. The very assertion under contention is that Microsoft has destroyed this aspect of the computer market by its monopolistic practices. In the world of perfect competition, any computer supplier would be free to start producing computers preloaded with operating systems other than Windows. The allegation under contention that if a computer supplier does do this, that their costs for Windows licences go up. This creates an artificial exit barrier from the Windows market segment. A manufacturer cannot transition to supplying non-Windows computer without running into costs that its competitors who remain do not run into.
Consequently, even if there is a demand for non-Windows PCs, the supply curve is shifted along the cost axis because of the way that Microsoft has allegedly created an artificial exit barrier to the Windows PC market segment.
So even if the demand is there, if Microsoft is a monopoly, the supply curve is unnaturally shifted and the demand and supply curves may never intersect when they would normally in a free market.
You do realize that for my joke to be a dupe I would have to have made it AFTER the other jokes in this discussion? What, is the date/time invisible?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I would happily have linux workstations, but there wouldn't be Catia, Pro/E, or a lot of other applications on them that students use daily.
I suppose I could have more Solaris boxes but then I wouldn't have as many available for people to use.
As much as I don't like Windows, other software vendors are complicit in the MS monopoly as well.
They could put nothing on the drive and it would cost more than the XP install because that is additional time and effort in tracking these low volume machines through the factory.
It's really not that hard to understand.
10,000,000,000% of U.S.'s software industry. 10% of India's software industry.
Mac OS X is a small fraction of the market and Linux doesn't even show up on a home 'consumer' radar.
How much choice do you have?
If it wasn't for Office I'd say Microsoft was vulnerable but with people abusing stuff (like using Excell as a database,) and just using small slices of product functionality, Microsoft is it, until OpenOffice, FireFox and ThunderBird get more widely used.
We are stuck with Microsoft until someone comes up with an integrated Excel killer (and one that lets you create a database from a spread sheet easily, to reverse the damage done by managers who don't see the problem they are causing in the future, until its too late,) and an Access killer which can work with a variety of open source databases.
Right now, we don't have enough usable options.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As I said, and as you admit, you can get PCs without Windows. My company does so when it chooses to, so do I as an individual. You are merely complaining that you cannot get a PC without Windows from *every* PC vendor. So what? If you prefer a niche product you have to expect that not everyone will cater to you, this is true for many things beyond operating systems. Secondly, many vendors probably do not want the configuration and support complications and selling Windows only configurations has nothing to do with Microsoft pressure.
it's roughly analogous to someone holding me at gunpoint and making me hand over $150 to them every time I buy a PC
Thank you for proving my point that the "Windows tax" argument is largely an emotional philosophical/political issue.
Your #4 is incorrect, and has been for about 50 years now. The "unseen hand" is a useful analogy, but its not entirely consistent with modern economic theory. Read up on anything written in the last 50 years regarding monopolies, and you'll learn that they can exist naturally, and indeed the government, by virtue of its coercive ability, is often the only way to break them. The remainder of your post, derived from this flawed premise, should thus be disregarded.
Oh, and FYI, professors are leftist because they actually study the world. I find it incredible that most people wouldn't ride in an airplane built by a layman, but are perfectly willing to listen to economic theory espoused by people unqualified to do so.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I think a lot of people are missing your point. Good thing too, it's wrong. They train for linux and Windows. An article bashing one of these products doesn't mean anything to their motives.
Only if their conclusion was correct (simply: microsoft's monopoly is costing others money) would they wish to come out with an inflammatory article.
We both know that mistakes can be done without motive, and that sidebar does look a little childish, but who do you expect to hear from? I'm sure a K-5 student would offer advice with less ulterior motives, if he had any advice to give.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I'm surprised so many Slashdotters come to the defense of Microsoft in response to a story that merely says the obvious. Of course Microsoft's monopoly creates losses! If it didn't, it'd be the first monopoly in history not to! The fact that it is a monopoly, and that it uses business practices that are illegal (for good reason) isn't even under debate. They've been convicted of the charges already!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
1 USD = 1.23004 CAD
1 USB = 1.31739 AUD
Thanks.
I do have to agree that Microsoft dominates the PC industry with a lot of unfair partnerships and agreements with PC vendors. But to say that PC consumers are losing billions because of this "monopoly" is a little far fetched. This assumes that PC users actually WANT Linux, and are not being offered the choice.
Lets put it this way. In a fair world, both Linux AND Windows are offered on every Dell computer. Many assume that Linux is FREE and Windows is NOT. Would the Linux option actually cost nothing compared to buying a Windows license on a Dell computer? My honest opinion is NO! While you are able to get Linux for free by downloading it online, a company like Dell would prefer to setup some form of Linux support option which you will have to pay for. Linux IS FREE, Linux support IS NOT! Also, considering the sheer amount of support required by newbies to simply install and use Linux, Dell would quickly want to absorb the extra cost of support by charging SOMETHING for installing Linux on their PC's.
The bottom line is, people often over estimate how free Linux really is. In a perfect world, if Linux was as easy to use and configure as Windows, then yes, you are losing $100 every time you buy a Dell computer because they charge you for the XP license and don't offer you a viable free alternative. But in reality, Dell would charge about $100 to install Linux on their PC's because of all the extra headaches and nightmares it would cause them in technical support alone.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Who cares? How about cost to Joe and Josephine Six Pack in sheer aggravation with windows bugs and malewarez leading to mostly non functional machines? Figure it out at minimum rage by the hour of hosed machine, times number of maachines, I bet it's a lot higher than 10 billion.
Ya, they want patents, copyrights, and maximum profit, yet they have NO WARRANTY for their "products". Seriously bogus "industry standard" compared to other industries.
How much does IE alone cost in extra web dev expense? It seems to add about 20% to dev time in my experience to deal with IE bugs and inabilities. And it keeps us from using some features that'd make life much easier or make our products more useful.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Did you know... 47% of stats are made up on the fly.
When I bought my toshiba laptop in Costa Rica they did not only refuse to sell me the laptop without Windows XP, they weren't even willing to give at least with an English version ....
... so great I had to get a pirated version of XP for my desktop PC (do not even ask why I need it) because I refuse to pay again for the same thing I did not want to buy the first place, but if they at least gave me a normal English version not a Crippled only toshiba Spanish, I could have simply used the licence I ALREADY PAID FOR ....
...
:(
OK, so with PCs at least you get a normal version, but laptop versions do not install anywhere else other than the laptop
I hate microsoft for that crap, and hate all retailers who force me to buy a copy with every laptop I buy
I do not need WINDOWS on my laptop please do not let me pay for it
PCs I just build from pieces and not by OP system (Linux/BSD would be used anyway)
I disagree. The profuseness of malware does not come from Windows boxes being homogeneous. It comes from security design flaws in the Windows operating system and in popular Microsoft applications.
When Microsoft was dragged through the courts the US Gov had plenty of chance to do the right thing, but they decided to overturn Jackson and allow Microsoft's monopoly to thrive and hurt everyone.
[dehli001] ~ > ssh 127.0.0.1
jahangir@127.0.0.1's password:
Welcome to the Interix UNIX utilities.
DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
Man, this was cool, no? Well then, check this out!
5 Klingons
4 starbases at 3,1, 0,2, 7,2, 1,3
It takes 250 units to kill a Klingon
Short range sensor scan
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 * . . . . . . . . . 0 stardate 2300.00
1 . . . . . . . E . . 1 condition GREEN
2 . . . . . # . . . . 2 position 3,1/1,7
3 . . . . . . . . . . 3 warp factor 5.0
4 . . . . . . . . . . 4 total energy 5000
5 . . . . . . . . . . 5 torpedoes 10
6 . . . . . . . . . . 6 shields up, 100%
7 . . . . . . . . . . 7 Klingons left 5
8 . . . * . . . . . . 8 time left 8.00
9 . * . . . . . . . 9 life support active
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This is just beta. Wait untill we see what they're working into XBox!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Ps. Moderation guide: Funny.
Wikileaks, no DNS
I have asked my Government to reduce tarrifs. I've written letters and voted for parties who support such actions. I am just a minority in a sea of people brainwashed by a corrupt government.
Freedom, man freedom! You have to remember, the freedoms you want to take away from businesses are also freedoms that will be taken away from you! And how dare you try to limit other people's freedoms just because YOU don't like something. If you don't like a product or a company, don't support it by buying it! If that's not enough, get on the news and persuade people to boycott etc...but please, don't try to limit my freedoms as a consumer or as a business with government force! Remember, the only true monopoly is your government--it is your government that doesn't give you a choice. You HAVE to pay taxes, you HAVE to obey laws, or you will go to jail or get shot. In the business world, you always have a choice (unless govt. interferes).
I think, therefore I doh.
Put the average end-user in front of two identical machines, ready to load. Each with one Ethernet card, one webcam, one HP inkjet printer, one external USB/Firewire device, one HD, one DVD burner, one dial-up modem. Give them Windows XP Home retail for one and Fedora Core 3 for the other. The assignment: by yourself with no external references or help, install each one and have all peripherals and harware working. You may only connect to the net to download drivers but may NOT research anything. You have to go with the interfae and help files immediately availible with the OS in question.
I guarantee you it will be Windows XP Home every single time that is totally or mostly successful. The webcam alone will be enough to prevent the FC3 build from reaching totality. The second most problematic will be the external USB or Firewire device. The third will be the modem and fourth will be the printer.
People can whine about there being a monopoly when the Linux would comes up with a disto that is as easy to use, as well supported, has as wide support for hardware as easily, and is so easy to maintain as Windows. Of course, the method Microsoft chose to follow to this plateau also came with a lot of tradeoffs on stability and security but any Linux zealot who claims Linux is secure and stable is lying blatantly. If Linux was so stable, or any *nix for that matter, would you need to have (you@yourbox)# kill [process id] in your toolbox never mind the legendary issues with the quirks of the most common *nix tools?
Here's a neat one. Load up the Stardock Object Desktop software suite on a WinXP box. Load up xcompmgr w/KDE on the FC3 box. Make each work. I guarantee the xcompmgr on FC3 will be so unstable and resource hogging as to make the machine useless, illustrating the claim of those who put it in, that is is unstable. Not so with SOD. Neat shadows, transparancy, zoomers like OSX, etc. Eye candy in abundance.
All that said, I use FC3 every day at home. But I have no blinders on that it is a techies' OS and NOT a casual end-user OS. I've been supporting Windows since before most of the anti-Microsoft crowd began their inane tinfoil hat FUD ranting against Redmond and if there is one central truth to it that I've learned, that it is very stable and secure IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING (with the exception of Millenium Edition which sucked donkey balls, especially on HP Pavillions).
I guarantee you that should any distro of Linux of tomorrow become equal to the ease of use and intuitiveness of Windows of today, it will be equally open to user error because that is the nature of the situation. The only practical way to shield against user error is to make the doing of things so hard that it discourages the attempt. The only practical way to make the system easy to use for total idiots is to make it childishly open and easy to do the slightest thing.
I wouldn't sell ANY version of Linux preloaded on consumer PCs aimed at casual end-users because as someone who's supported them for years on end, I know they won't even read their VCR manuals to stop the clock from flashing 12:00. They won't have truck with RPMs and dependency never mind makefiles and builds.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
using Linux by learning to setup a Cron job to start Openoffice an hour before they get to work, so that it's just about ready when they arrive!
It's generally considered poor debating form to impugn the source of an argument rather than its substance. Some people honestly believe Bill Gates isn't Beelzebub.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
Someone get on the horn with CowboyNeal... one of his slashbots is dumping its code again...
Community to Microsoft: We can make up numbers too!
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
But every time Microsoft makes it a little harder to update, the cost of updating is still less than a complte migration to another OS. Would Linux save money in the long run? Probably. But very few people are that farsighted, and take these decisions one at a time - and taken individually, "stick with what you have now" will win every time.
If you want to kill a frog, don't put it in a pot of boiling water, it'll jump out. Put it in lukewarm water, and slowly warm it so it doesn't notice.
Nope. I really don't. If my box comes with WIndows installed, and it's no cheaper without, no stress. Just install over it.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
MMMmm that potty mouth is really going to convince mom and pop that you have a trustworthy alternative - not. Think the unthinkable, in 5years windows will be open source - you bet. The ultimate loss leader. PCs are cheaper than ever before because of scale. 10 years ago a P100 nearly the price of a top end server today. At least Mr& Mrs Bill are giving their gazillions away...cue Donald Trump..no? Why am I not surprised....
erm,why should I?
What is "M$"? I admit nothing of the sort. I admit to buying a server which happens to come with Windows, which I can not get any cheaper without Windows. If I don't like that, I admit to looking into some other option. But I don't really care if it comes with Windows, because I admit that I will install anything I want on it. I admit also that it is unlikly that they would offer it cheaper without Windows. I admit that I think most people here froth a bit much at the mouth.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I have used PCs since the mid 80's. I've used a wide range of machines including: an Apple IIe,a TRS-80 Model 3, a Lisa, Commodore Pet, Commodore 64, Macs, PC compats. I've worked on several operating systems ranging from Mac OS, CP/M, DOS Windows and Linux.
Linux is NOT initutive to almost 75% of the population of computer users. Until the OS is improved to the point where your mom or dad could set it up it won't be ready.
I don't like MS and I do like Linux and the Mac OS. But I suspect that if you put Linux on every machine in corporate America... it would cost them more than that the quoted number in the article to support it in the field. Now if you made OS X available to every PC desktop... then you'd have an OS that would be a viable competitor. Linux just ain't there... yet.
Well since the canadian dollar is higher than the australian dollar, you just made yourself that much dumber.
You don't have to do complex calculations--just look at Microsoft's profits. Since Microsoft's products are no more technologically advanced than many alternative offerings, in an efficient market, competition would drive prices down and those profits would quickly go away.
I think Mac OS will change the scenario, at least to some extent, once it starts shipping on intel platform. But then, Apple is not a whole lot different from Microsoft anyways.
because we'll never know what would have happened in the absence of MS. Could be that without microsoft a plethora of different non-compatible OS's would have emerged resulting in the developers of applications on each of those platforms having to charge more to recoup their investments... But there's no way to calculate the losses based on that scenario... let alone determine what effect that has had on hardware prices. Or In an alternate scenario maybe we'd live in the idyllic world of the linux zealots like Stallman and all work day jobs at a retail store, then donate our free time to making free software for everyone. In this case the the monopoly is costing the entire $40 billion of microsoft's profit.
Nope. I really don't. If my box comes with WIndows installed, and it's no cheaper without, no stress. Just install over it.
So you support being forced to pay extra for your boxes, provided you have no choices. What an interesting opinion. The point is, it would be cheaper without Windows, except the computer retailers are forced to charge you for it whether or not you buy it because otherwise MS takes them in the rear with OEM licensing, upon which they are dependent.
Let me make this perfectly clear, You are paying extra money because MS wants to discourage you from using Linux.
What support? Indeed. None.
From what I see in Dell pricing it is sort of the case, they want $599 (I think now it might be $369 but I digress) for a computer period, and if you want them to install an different OS than the one they include standard they are going to charge you $20 to do the extra work over and above the intial price they offered you to put a computer together in the first place. Given that MS can no longer charge them a penalty for shipping an alternate OS (remember the DOJ is watching to make sure this no longer happens) the reason there aren't alternate OS's is that the OEM's don't want to install them.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Or, it's because the XP machine also comes pre-installed with $50 worth of spyware and adware.
(Or, it could be because MS is still doing the deal where, to get OEM pricing on Windows, Dell has to pay for Windows on every system they sell, whether it actually HAS it or not.)
Given that MS can no longer charge them a penalty for shipping an alternate OS (remember the DOJ is watching to make sure this no longer happens) the reason there aren't alternate OS's is that the OEM's don't want to install them.
Please show me one bit of evidence that the DOJ is watching over them in any meaningful way. They have already blatantly violated antitrust laws a dozen times since the trial and we have heard not one single peep from the U.S. Dept. of Justice. At the same time The EU and a number of other foreign courts have brought MS up on charges for their actions. The US politicians have been bought, plain and simple. MS is continuing business as usual after being found guilty and being punished, by the courts doing absolutely nothing. The contracts MS has are considered "trade secrets" and have not been subpoenaed by the courts or by any law enforcement agency that has been reported. How exactly are they watching?
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
yeah, and the monopoply of for-pay gasoline over free is costing us trillions per year!
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
I must admit - I am personally very surprised that it is only $10bn per annum. I would have expected a figure between $50bn and $100bn per annum. This is taking into account not just the additional cost of having to purchase a monopoly product at a price premium but including all the ancillary "hidden" costs of being relyant upon Microsoft - anti-virus, anti-trojan, anti-spyware, diagnostic tools, repair/upgrade costs, loss of productivity due to downtime, loss of intellectual property due to software failure, indirect loss of life through software failure/errors, costs to industry to hire the hoard of MCSEs to maintain the whole mess.
Yeah.... $50bn-$100bn is IMHO more realistic. Whoever decided upon $10bn is being very optimistic and is obviously trying to portray Microsoft as a beneficial monopoly.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Actually, there are a lot of real culprits out there and I think that the government is pretty low on that list. There are all those information management types in all their variety of titles - an MS sales rep buys them a deli sandwich and a coke and they turn to putty. There are also a bunch of admin types that are as bad or worse - they often believe they know things. They usually get a better meal from the sales rep, but that's just sloppy sales technique on the rep's part.
The biggest culprits are lazy computer buyers. It comes with Windows, use Windows. It comes with Office, why use Wordperfect (unless, of course, you are a lawyer). Buyer inertia is the biggest problem. If you bought a computer and just left it as it was configured because you never bothered to even WONDER about an alternative (not Apple - much too spendy), never experimented with an alternative to word or Wordperfect - there were some really fine ones around for a while - and just went with AOL because it set itself up and you never had to ask for the gateway, and primary and secondary DNS IP numbers from your ISP, then you have met the chief culprit, every morning in your mirror.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
To me, that is the very simple solution to this particular problem. Microsoft owe probably more to Michael Dell for the entrenched nature of their monopoly than virtually anyone else. He should have been named an accessory in the US MS antitrust trial, IMHO.
I have never bought a bundled PC from Dell or any other company...always parts, which I have either assembled myself or paid for the labour involved to do so. Either way it's cheaper, generally more reliable in my observation, you can still get a warranty for the individual components, and the kind of monopoly-inducing pre-bundling mentioned here is avoided.
So it's really very simple...if you don't want to support Microsoft's monopoly, don't support the other people who helped create it; namely, Dell and the other major "package" OEMs.
To make things worse, if the plane crashes because the pilot does something stupid, everyone looks at the engineer that designed a system that allowed the pilot to do something stupid. If a president ignores common sense and takes a populist crackpot idea and runs the country into the crapper, everyone is happy and he is great. Go figure.
I don't know if Dell supports these machines equally, but if they do, it *could* be due to higher tech support costs.
I think it's bullshit too, but you asked for a reason, and that's the only comprehensible one I can come up with... except that MS is a monopoly.
I8-D
No. The cost to the manufacturer is less. That does not mean they would pass that on to you the consumer.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
At this price I'm sticking with Star Wars Monopoly.
Emotional reactions to Microsoft's dominance will have no effect on that dominance. Microsoft dominates this space, not because they cheated their way to the top like so many like to think. They know good business and developed the products and ISV network to make their platform the most attractive one for a business environment. IBM at one point was way ahead of MS and had victory in the palm of their hands with OS/2 and extremely well integrated products and management tools (for its time). They allowed Microsoft to speed by them with a product as pitiful as Windows 95! That was very sad! (Knowing IBM's product line today, we're probably lucky in the end) However Microsoft continued to target the business user and placed themselves at the top of the heap. Today, no one offers the diversity of tools, knowledge and product integration. Anyone that argues that fact knows nothing of their product line. Microsoft doesn't release revolutionary products. They release evolutionary products. That's the most businesses can consume and Microsoft knows it. When they cut WinFS from Longhorn it wasn't because they didn't have time to include it. They heard from customers that they weren't ready to take on something like that yet. The press eats that stuff up tho. Emotion simply has no place in the corporate environment! This is business, not religion. Microsoft is the competition, not the enemy. You have to outwit and out play them (to steal a line from a popular reality show). Until the competition figures that out, Microsoft will continue to lead this space. Before you can TOPPLE the leader, you need to INTEGRATE with the leader. Simply emulating them and calling them crooks will not cut it. And litegation is not a business model. The first contender to get this will make a whole lot of money! Google comes to mind. Notice their approach to MS. No emotion there. They are quietly and continually innovating (with products that work on Windows!) and adding features to their products. Microsoft however has been caught reacting somewhat emotionally to the successes of Google. Hmmm...
> Oh, and FYI, professors are leftist because they actually study the
> world... but are perfectly willing to listen to economic theory
> espoused by people unqualified to do so.
Yea right. Most professors are leftist because they fall into an easy fallacy. That expertise in one area is transferrable. Being a first rate physicist does not mean you know jack about philosophy, politics or economics. But you would be hard pressed to find one who understood that.
And the reason most fall for socialism is easy enough to understand if one understands human nature. Socialism tells the chrome domes that they are the enlightened few, and that they should be running the world. Who wouldn't like that sort of ego stroking? Especially since few have had much exposure to philosophy or political science, and of the few who have it is mostly of the marxist rewritten variety popular on college campuses.
But they shouldn't be running the world, centralized planning dooesn't work, millions of mass graves and starving masses in lands that used to export food are proof for any with eyes to see. For you see, even if the experts ARE truly expert in their field, can avoid becoming corrupt, etc. No expert is as smart as the free market. Millions of average intellects interracting in the free market exhibits greater wisdom than any single, or small cabal of, geniuses,
As for ecomists, they fall into two catagories: Marxist crackpots who should be dismissed from their tenured perches and the real ones who deal with reality. Most of the non-marxists understand that a true monopoly is very hard to sustain without government intervention in the marketplace. Of course Microsoft does benefit from such intervention so it is a legitimate thing if the government should decide to try fixing their mess.
Democrat delenda est
That expertise in one area is transferrable. Being a first rate physicist does not mean you know jack about philosophy, politics or economics.
Neither does being uneducated. I'll take the opinion of someone who has spent time actively educated themselves in one field over that of Joe Random Ignorant Masses.
But they shouldn't be running the world
Yeah. Choosing rich, connected daddy's failure for a son is a much better method of finding leadership.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Yea right. Most professors are leftist because they fall into an easy fallacy. That expertise in one area is transferrable. Being a first rate physicist does not mean you know jack about philosophy, politics or economics. But you would be hard pressed to find one who understood that.
You'd be hard-pressed to prove that baseless assertion. I'm talking about taking economics advice from economists, not taking economics advice from a physicist. However, even the physicist is more qualified to speak on economics than your average shmoe. A format training in mathematics and the scientific method is something that is widely applicable.
And the reason most fall for socialism is easy enough to understand if one understands human nature.
Red-herring. Who is talking about socialism here anyway? You're going to have a hard time finding a lot of socialist economists...
Socialism tells the chrome domes that they are the enlightened few, and that they should be running the world.
What the hell are you talking about? Socialism is by its very nature anti-classist and populist. A socialist utopia would be a country run by factory workers, something I assure you most academics would not find appealing. The idea that an enlightened few should run the world is not associated with socialism. Socialists have often held these ideas, but it is not a part of the ideology itself. Rather, these ideas have been associated with intellectuals in general, and indeed played a very prominent role in the thinking of our own Founding Fathers.
Especially since few have had much exposure to philosophy or political science, and of the few who have it is mostly of the marxist rewritten variety popular on college campuses.
Given your average professor and your average layman, which one do you really think would have lesser exposure to philosophy and political science? And I'm intrigued by this marxsist literature supposedly floating around college campuses. I assume you can provide references to back up your claims?
But they shouldn't be running the world, centralized planning dooesn't work, millions of mass graves and starving masses in lands that used to export food are proof for any with eyes to see.
Who exactly suggested centralized planning? There is a wide berth between the populist (socialist!) nature of America's current political climate and the absolutist tendencies of centrally-planned societies. In my opinion, a nice middle-ground is the original American Republic, where the power of government depends upon the people, but at the same time, the exact course of its actions is well-insulated from the masses.
No expert is as smart as the free market. Millions of average intellects interracting in the free market exhibits greater wisdom than any single, or small cabal of, geniuses
Most economists won't argue that point, at least in the abstract. What they will point out, however, is that the free market does have limitations in specific cases, stemming from its very nature. In those corner cases, a single entity (usually government, hopefully guided by a cabal of geniuses) can exhibit greater wisdom than the whole mass of people.
As for ecomists, they fall into two catagories: Marxist crackpots who should be dismissed from their tenured perches and the real ones who deal with reality.
In other words they can be seperated into ones you disagree with and ones you agree with? And I assume you are basing your categorization on your own extensive body of work, given you the ability to discern which economists are right and which are wrong?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Oh, and FYI, professors are leftist because they actually study the world.
But do they study it effectively? Critically? Julian Simon wasn't on The Left. Neither was Von Mises. And some professors you might think are on The Left, like the economist Lester Thurow, do not seem so nearly on The Left once you read a few of their books.
A side note on being willing to listen to economic theory espoused by people unqualified to do so; when some economists say the economy is going up and others say it is going down, why, since they're both economists they must both be correct, right? Does this statement mean I should stop listening to Jeremy Rifkin when he talks about the environment because his degree is in economics?
Your subject is misleading, as you can't be convicted of being a monopoly since being a monopoly isn't illegal. There are a few practices, like predatory pricing, that are illegal. MS has in fact followed the DOJ's pricing guidelines with the largest OEM's like Dell. The DOJ is watching them closely in this regard, so there is no injustice here.
Another issue is MSIE. Many (most?) of us don't consider bundling IE with Windows injustice. We look at it as "duh" evolution of Windows. As a Windows developer, it's very nice knowing that I can rely on MSIE.dll et al being available for my applications. Netscape was useless from a development standpoint (their SDK's were horrible and their redistributable license was a pain as well). Once we could rely on IE being there, our development time and costs went down while our customers got a more consistent product. For the record I'm not talking about web sites I'm talking about products that embed a browser, in which many MS ISV's rely on and would be screwed if the DOJ made the silly ruling to force MS to remove MSIE. What MS did do is make it stupid-easy for anyone to select alternative browsers, email clients, etc. as defaults. While this has always been possible, MS made it even easier with a with a very user friendly UI.
Being a monopoly should not prohibit you from adding on to your product just because some 3rd party makes a similar addon to your product already. That doesn't help customers, it just forces them to buy or download more crap. Sure, it may not help Netscape, but they're just whining because, like many things in technology, their product became commoditized and they couldn't make money on it.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The app involved does not include GUI elements, which makes it easier; the Windows development cycle seems to concentrate on the GUI 90%, the code 10%. I'm not in that game.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
And in addition, in reality nothing is free. In order to sell the PC with FreeDOS, they have to be able to support it, and most tech support reps won't work for free. So claiming there is no additional cost as a result of the FreeDOS is wrong.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
You didn't like my DeLorean idea? I was trying to say it'd be nice if we had real emperical data to discuss instead of the ersatz formula in this whitepaper.
To pick up on your ball throwing metaphor... If the Spurs spent eighty percent less on the salaries of their players, NBA fans in San Antonio would be that much richer, right? Of course, what would really happen without so much money in it, you'd have a less competitive game, like the Continental Basketball Association.
Imagine a world where MS is on equal footing in Australia with six other operating system companies. You couldn't cleanly compare that world to ours with a simplistic formula like "cost x 1.1 = $500/1.8 x 1.1 million". You wouldn't have Windows XP and SQL Server in a world where software wasn't such a high stakes game, not anymore than you'd have Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili if the NBA payed its players peanuts. Regardless of what one thinks of antitrust law or Microsoft, it's probably incorrect to imagine simple arthmetic can calculate the effect of a universe sans Bill Gates.
"To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits." - Thomas Sowell
"Never speak to me of profit. It's a dirty word." - Pandit Nehru
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
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Do you know that most Americans spend 7 hours/day asleep? That translates into a productivity loss of 8 Trillion! dollars per year! Imagine how much drug companies that make stimulants will pay for that kind of original research.
The time spent in traffic waiting on red lights to turn green cost America $578,000,000 per year. How much will companies that make green traffic lights pay for this kind of information?
Workers having sex and taking romantic trips abroad with their significant others, cost America $234,000,000,000 per year in lost productivity. That something that the makers of Viagara will pay a lot of money to not have made public knowledge.
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I'd say that whatever Microsoft takes in per year is what they cost the industry.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Read this.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Blew It
That's right... the irony is that the evidence against Microsoft was so overwhelming that the judge couldn't hide his sneer, which caused most of the case to get tossed due to bias. Would you believe?!?!
This mistake is really what's causing us to be condemned to umpteen more years of hegemony.
HP and Dell, in particular, will charge a premium for machines that do not come preloaded with Windows and justify this by claiming that the costs of supporting users with other operating systems is greater due to the preponderance of telephone monkeys being "skilled" in MS products.
The companies will claim that this holds true even in the event that the alternative OS is not directly supported, as hardware diagnostics are more complicated on non MS systems.
While this may seem specious, it does enable them to obey MS and insulate Redmond from further anti-trust action.
Given how much of our world has become commercialized, the prevalence of advertising, the influence of money on decision-making, etc. it's sometimes interesting to consider the government itself as a monopoly service provider.
Not a complete monopoly, since regulations governing human behavior are set (at least in the US) by federal, state, county and municipality, by various religious groups, and by employers and unions.
While laws and regulations are not a blantantly free and direct market, it's still interesting how money is used to buy certain regulations and, in our modern representative democracies, the mechanisms used (eg, convincing the voters, hiding some news, highlighting other news, etc.)
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Can you do this unless you go out of your way to do it? No? Can you buy an assembled PC from CompUSA/Fry's/Micro Center/Best Buy/Circuit City without Windows? No? The places I mentioned are scattered throughout the country and unless you're online or in one of those towns you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PURCHASE WITHOUT WINDOWS- and if you don't have a credit card, you can forget even that. When you DO get the shot at a machine, you end up paying for the privilege of having someone install Windows on the machine first and THEN putting Linux on it- so you spend more money than you would on Windows machines, all artificially, by the way.
You didn't get your point proved at all except in your own mind. That's fine, but you're still just wrong- but as I can see you're still repeating the same BS, there's no convincing you. Have fun while it lasts- they don't have your best interests in mind at all and they're working on removing your ability to exercise the rights that you have by law. Of course, with the attitude you have, you'll be happy with that until they personally bend you over- at which it'll be too damn late and you'll be doing a lot of yowling and nobody will be listening to you.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Our consititution was written prior to technological advancements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technolog y. I believe this is the right time to rewrite our constitution to comphrensively prevent these things happening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Two people I know want to buy Macs, they are both non-techies, both girls, and both asked me where they could get one from.
Their lack of technical knowledge basically says 'computer' ok, that is a computer, and that is a computer, ok, which one shoudl I buy, oh that one looks nice.
Brilliant! not to mention 4 of my friends asked my to install ubuntu onto their machines. The interwebnet still works, their email works, and they have more card games!
Score.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Okay, why was it modded troll to say that I believe the government favors gaining GDP over having its citizens better off? Does everyone suddenly believe that politicians actually try to help us?
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
I didn't mean to insult you...
M$ = Micro$oft.
$ is the symbol for U.S. currency.
You have paid for a Microsoft Windows license that you will not use. Multiply that by the number of servers and workstations sold with windows and converted to linux and what you have is a racket, fraudulent behaviour. A forced tax paid to someone who offers NO service. Microsofts activity needs to be halted. The poor souls who are locked into these contracts or "deals" (dell, hp, etc...) need to be set free from the convicted monopoly called Microsoft. Legal action should be taken on a congressional level to allow escape for these companies if they choose.
Analogy:
It's like a vegatarian being force (against there principals) to buy the Beef, Potatoes and corn when they want the potatoes and corn only.
"We will kill the cow and put it on your plate, You will just have to eat around it if you don't like it."
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.