Vista vs. Cairo - A Microsoft History Lesson

avocade writes "Here is a nice history lesson by (the unfortunately infamous) Daniel Eran, arguing why the Longhorn/Vista road is very similar to the NT/Cairo road that Microsoft took in the 90's, effectively trying their best to discourage competition in the marketplace."

Comments

Re:Ok, I'll bite.

[johnw]

What did Windows 95 actually add? W95 actually followed on from W3.1 rather than W3.0. The main feature which it added (and the thing which drove Microsoft to release it) was incompatibility with OS/2. Because IBM had licensed access to the W3.1 source they were able to achieve first-rate compatibility for OS/2 running W3.1 programs, plus much better stability, multi-tasking etc. A crashing W3.1 program running on OS/2 simply took itself out rather than the whole system. Microsoft saw themselves potentially losing market share in a big way, so rushed W95 out.

This has always been the way with Microsoft. They'll happily deny there's anything wrong with a product, no matter how much evidence exists that there is. The *only* thing that will move them to act is the prospect of losing market share to a better product.

Bull... Once more for those who skipped class

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a monopoly is NOT illegal. It is leveraging the monopoly in an anti-competitive manner that is illegal.

Items 1, 2 and 4 on your list are just good business sense. Monopoly or not.

But "3. Working with third parties to offer incentives to provide your product solely." is illegal. If you leave off the word "solely" its ok, but when your "incentives" come off like strong-arm bullying, and the "solely" provision is the primary objective, that is anti-competitive. That is also what Microsoft was (repeatedly) found guilty of.

And from what I've seen and heard of Vista, application of the other three items is questionable.

Re:Bull... Once more for those who skipped class

[DECS]

Actually exclusive deals are not illegal, and maintaining a monopoly often is.

Try googling news for "exclusive deal," and tell me how many of those are illegal. There are lots of examples of exclusive business deals.

However, while monopolies are allowed in specific areas where it is determined that competition would create more problems that it would solve, the existance of legal monopolies (for cable, power utilitites, water) generally overlap into areas often supplied by the government (municipal transportation, power, water), not competitive industries.

In competitive industires, monopolies are generally illegal. When Lowes Theaters bought AMC Theaters, it was forced by the state of California to divest itself of certain theaters so that it wouldn't own the majority of outlets in certain markets. That happened despite the fact that AMC/Lowes didn't even own all the theaters and had significant competition.

Microsoft's monopoly in operating systems was defined as a monopoly in the court, and found to be abusive in the narrow portion of evidence that was actually considered. Significant efforts were presented to solve that illegal monopoly and abuseive use, but then the current administration swung into power and dismissed any and all action.

So no, despite the rule of law being uninforced in America, monopolies are not generally "legal" just because an anonymous coward says they are. That's a myth. The US has a long history of breaking up monopolies and companies that exercise undo influence over markets. In other countries, including Europe and Asia, monoploy control is more common and not always illegal. Massive conglomerations are typical in Japan and Germany, but were always frowned upon in the US, back when the rule of law was enforced.

Illegal monopolies are not legal any more than illegal wars are legal. Just because something is allowed by a kowtowed populace and an uncritical press does not mean that the law does not exist or that it will never be enforced. Just wait until the red states have a moment to consider how much money they have lost! Once that happens, the US is sure to have a revolution of sorts and elect an administration more interested in enforcing the laws than in distractions of jews, flag burning, gay marrage & all the problems caused by minories.

Re:Bull... Once more for those who skipped class

[DECS]

I'm glad you like my site.

However, as in the example I gave, antitrust policy is the way the US works. GE, GM, and General Mills might be big companies, but they are not conglomerates on the scale of German and Japanese companies, where mega umbrella companies enter and control multiple markets. As a sloppy example, Mitsubishi does everything from banking to heavy industry, oil, real estate, steel, cars, ag, beer, logistics, insurance, and it even cans tuna.

No American groups can do that because of different economic policies on competition. In the US, there are laws preventing companies from dominating industries and distorting competition, let alone owning multiple industries. The US similarly has had far less support for nationalized utilities.

The US government always investigates mergers and acquisitions to make sure that comeptition won't be distorted as companies converge. Back when Aldus and Adobe became Adobe, the company had to divest itself of Aldus Freehand (because it also had Adobe Illustrator); It sold it off to Macromedia.

Things have changed. When Adobe bought Macromedia, it stripped the software world of far more competition, but no action was taken. Adobe didn't have to get rid of Macromedia Freehand for Adobe Illustrator this time around, nor did it have to allow Dreamweaver and GoLive to remain in competition, and any of a number of other examples. The difference is a change in politics and economic thought.

Despite that shift, monopolies are only allowed where competition is unlikely to benefit consumers. Newspapers in a city are often allowed to join in non-competitive joint contracts to fix prices on advertising, keeping ad prices artificially high in order for newspapers to cheat off obsolescence. But that doesn't mean its legal for gas stations to collude on price fixing too.

Making blanked statements that "monopolies are legal as long as they're not hurting anyone" is similarly misinformed, particularly under the rather arrogant title "Bull... Once more for those who skipped class," so I had to jump on it.

I'm a sucker for arguing against anonymous cowards I guess.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes