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Time For Anti-Trust 2.0?
An anonymous reader writes, "PC manufacturer Acer is complaining that Microsoft has jacked up the price of Vista, and that the basic versions are so basic no one will ship them. Since the collapse of the Microsoft anti-trust case under the Bush administration in 2001, manufacturers have no choice but to accede, adding hundreds of dollars to the cost of each PC. With Gates now proclaiming victory over European regulators, Microsoft once again seems unstoppable. But Microsoft had drawn itself
close to the Republican Party.
With the Republicans now evicted from the House and Senate, is it time to
look at the Microsoft anti-trust suit?
Could Microsoft be compelled to lower its inflating Vista prices,
or to open their tech or even supply funding
to Linux-flavored Windows such as Wine? What do Slashdot readers think about the likelihood of another go at breaking up the Windows monopoly?"
I welcome high prices on w32. There are alternatives, said manufactures could just install one of those.
Now, if the prices dependent on not selling anything by w32, I can see the point, and that should be fined so heavily that they never, ever dream of doing it again.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
The Democrats in the congress do not have enough political capital to waste on slaying Microsoft. In under 2 years, no less. Not when there are other priorities.
Plus, I say let them jack up prices. Let manufacturers hurt. It may convince them to introduce Ubuntu pre-loaded machines. Why not? It doesn't require a complete changeover, just a quiet new line of products. Snowball effect, at some point. Surely they see the trend of the snowball coming their way, anyhow.
Or price the same machines without an OS. It's simple enough that car ads and other products do that. Most ads offer the 2007 model Toyota whatever, starting at $9,999. Well, we all know that's base model. But that magic 9 price grabs our eyeballs and does it's job all the same.
Although it's true that many people can do without the bundled Media Centre in preference of alternatives and will probably experience *better* performance Aero-free, that's not all they've stripped out. Laptop users with basic may be feeling a little chilly without Windows Mobility Centre. Sure, you don't *need* it travel, connect wirelessly and work, but in this day and age of mobile communication those are pretty basic OS features they've decided to limit to enhanced editions. The other issue is that Aero is not purely aesthetic and does offer some functional usability features too. Just how long it will be until a developer of one of those Open Source apps you love decides to utilise a cool element of the Aero interface, forgetting momentarily that not everyone has it. After all, he doesn't code for Macs for exactly that reason...
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulhu..."
Right, and anyone who wants MS broken up will certainly need it. The Republicans didn't particularly care about the MS monopoly when they were in charge of Congress, but more importantly the majority of MS lobbying is done towards the Democrats. Neither party is going to do a damn thing.
Anyways, the change of power really doesn't mean much since the Executive Branch is in charge of prosecutions. If Bush hasn't cared about MS thumbing its nose at everyone for the past 6 years, he isn't going to start caring now when he is trying to tame the Democrats. He's not about to attack one of their biggest lobbyists unless he absolutely has to.
Microsoft doesn't give them a choice. OEM contract agreements clearly state that they must sell computers with Microsoft Windows installed. To get away with selling systems with Linux installed you pay what is commonly known as the "Microsoft Tax". In other words you are paying for Windows even though you're not really getting it. This "tax" is a reality. Microsoft has been at this for a long time.
As for the Dems not having enough money to go after Microsoft or not having the authority I beg to differ. For one the Democrats control Congress now, so if they do go after Microsoft it will be paid for by tax payer money, and second they have the authority to investigate Microsoft in Congresional commity which would be a bad thing for Bill Gates and company. So, no they don't need George W. Bush's cooperation to go after Microsoft but I'm certain they could persuade him to assist them since they control government spending (ie; the power of the purse) and they have oversight authority over different branches of government. If a certain agency isn't doing its job like the FTC for instance they can go after them which would be very bad for Microsoft. The FTC investigates violations of and enforces Anti-Trust Laws and they answer to the US Senate.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
There is still no viable, functionally equivalent alternative to Visio. Someone call me when there is.
In my eyes, this functional equivalence would need to include the ability to use Visio stencils, or a replacement for all the existing stencils already in use. This isn't likely to happen anytime soon, I'm afraid.
Except that Microsoft is relying on our government to enforce its patents and copyrights, all of which is supposed to be for the public good. If Microsoft is going to break the rules and show disdain for the public good, and they really want the government to stay out of it, then how about they stay all the way out of it and stop enforcing Microsoft's IP?
I know we sometimes get into a mode of thinking where "capitalism" is used to justify an attitude of corporate entitlement. Still, I think it's worth noting all of the benefits we, the people, through our government, have afforded companies like Microsoft beyond what raw capitalism dictates. Since Microsoft has used these benefits to our detriment, making it impossible in some cases to stop using Microsoft software, it's easy to argue that we, the people, ought to act through our government again to rectify the situation.
First: everyone check my comment history to confirm that I'm as much a raving anti-MS, logiciel libre freak as the next guy.
But this thread is dangerous:
"if major pc manufacturers start shipping pcs without windows, they lose their discount pricing on windows & other ms software"
"In addition, there should be no "incentives" of any kind"
C'mon guys, we believe in a free market here. What's needed is for a manufacturer or two to grow a pair, offer preinstalled Linux, and put some effort behind it. Some marketing that makes the case for Linux. How much is the discount? $50? How many people would notice the difference between a $1400 computer and a $1450 one?
Abusing monopoly power in order to crush new markets is wrong; offering incentives to partners in order to maintain market share is 100% legal and moral.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Well, sadly I can't provide a citation for this (although hey, this is Slashdot-- citations are for wimps, right?), but I was under the impression that the deal worked something like this:
In the post-Dell world of low-margin commodity PC's, the difference is likely to be at least $100, possibly more. Hell, there are even things like 'co-marketing' grants from the likes of MS and Intel, where the OEM gets money in return for putting MS or Intel prominently in their advertising, and I'm sure that the MS one offsets most of the remaining cost of the Windows licenses. However, when you're competing for a slice of the $500 PC market, you don't want your $25 copy of Windows to start costing $150 now. Or, in the case of Vista, $200 or more (because no-one wants the basic versions, as Acer suggests). Now, if you don't get favourable pricing, your offering either costs $700 compared to the competition's $500, or else you're going to lose money on every unit sold.
It's not the potential markup on a $1400 PC that hurts -- it's the markup on a $400 or $500 PC that hurts, because the retail price of Windows will increase that by a fairly noticeable percentage.
-Q
Ten years ago I was being told that Microsoft was a juggernaut that would squash anything in it's way. I was given all the usual tripe. That Sun would be out of business, that Linus Torvalds would be in jail for treason, that Gates would be knocking on my door to collect my firstborn. None of it happened.
There is no monopoly. There is only a large marketshare. For the past ten years, during the very period of time everyone was telling me I had no choice, I have been using non-Microsoft systems. Currently I am using FreeBSD on my desktop and Mac OSX on my laptop. The only Windows I have is on my work-supplied laptop, and that's on a *secondary* partition. I can tell Bill Gates to "bite me" with no fear of repercussion.
Sun is still going strong (and still stuck in their perpetual layoff/hire cycle). Solaris is still the workstation of choice, whose chief competition comes from Santa Clara instead of Redmond.
Apple, the perpetually dying platform, is doing gangbusters. Sure, Microsoft gave them some money. But the very first thing they did with it was to come out with Safari and dump Internet Explorer. The OSX desktop is just starting to explode on the scene. I work with a lot of software companies, and most of them are moving into the Mac market for the very first time.
During the very height of the Microsoft monopoly, Linux went from an obscure kernel project to a major player in the server and embedded markets with lots of inroads to the desktop. And it's not just because Open Source is the equivalent of "price dumping", because the service side of things isn't inexpensive.
OpenOffice and Firefox have shown that high quality productivity tools don't need to come from Redmond.
So where's the monopoly? What is stopping me, or anyone else, from not using Microsoft products? It may be still be hard to find pre-bundled Linux systems, but pre-bundled Mac OSX systems are just one aisle over. That's just on the desktop side. On the server side only the true-blue Microsoft fan still uses Windows on the server.
In short, there is no monopoly.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!