The problem with your argument is, in order to show that a company abused monopoly power, you have to show how consumers (not competetors) were harmed.
The scenario you describe is one in which Microsoft artificially drives the price of certain products down to $0 by bundling. The supposed terrible result is going to occur when Microsoft kills off all competetors and then starts raising prices.
The problem with your argument comes at this point. When the prices are $0, consumers are extremely well-off. Since prices are still so low, the harm to consumers that everyone is so worreied about hasn't happened yet.
If/when Microsoft begins raising prices, then others will offer alternative solutions, and those that present a better value will win. Right now the market price for web browsers and media players is $0. Microsoft has a distribution advantage, but most people still end up downloading other players. I use iTunes and VideoLan myself, in addition to WMP on windows.
If Microsoft starts charging, I and millions of other people will look to a free alternative.
You're right. I use iTunes (and buy songs through it) because I like the selection. I wish companies other than MS would do usability research for Windows software.
So the thing is, you have to show how consumers are harmed in order to show that a company has abused market power. Being able to obtain superb multimedia software for $0 is a pretty nice position to be in as a consumer. This is why it's Microsoft's competetors who start these lawsuits, not consumers. Consumers have never been happier.
Plus, it's not as though a few smart people couldn't very quickly create an alternative. OSS alternatives currently exist, but there's nobody marketing them like Microsoft. Now you're going to tell me that Marketing should be illegal:-)
Microsoft has settle the issues you describe and has modified its business practices. Why punish it more? Why not just let people avoid the trouble of having to download WMP separately after they buy Windows?
You don't realize it but you are proving my point. If Windows stinks so much, then the industry is RIPE for competition. It's funny how people miss that.
What would be wrong with that? Consumers benefit by having cheaper hotel rooms. As long as there still is competition, then it's ok. There is lots of competition in the media player area. Winamp, iTunes, Real Networks, VideoLan, etc., etc.
The issue here is that Microsoft's competetors can't compete by writing better code, so they hire lawyers and fight it out that way. It just makes things worse for consumers.
Uh, you haven't defined abuse other than to point to areas where Microsoft is successful.
If you built a hotel and wanted to market it, you might decide to sell rooms at a discount in order to draw clientelle from your competetors. You might even decide to charge $0 for a room for a while. If you want to increase awareness, how is this a bad idea unless you do it too long and sacrifice profit for too long?
How does that constitute abuse? The US case forced Microsoft to modify its business practices. What should Microsoft do, consult the EU every time it wants to release a new product? Or consult the EU before determining what price to charge for it?
Charging $0, btw, is precisely NOT leveraging monopoly power. If Microsoft had monopoly power to leverage, it would leverage it for profit, not for market share.
What is MS guilty of? You should make a list of things that weren't covered in the US decision, because since that took place MS has modified its business practices.
Gephardt would have doubled the size of Homeland Security. Kerry supported the war in Iraq.
Politicians like power, which is why EU officials enjoy looting Microsoft's coffers and taking money that belongs to shareholders. Americans should be almost as outraged as by the importation of Canadian socialized healthcare pharmaceutical price controls.
What is MS doing that others can't? The performance of Real vs WMP isn't different, but the overall quality of the products is. WMP is better designed software and uses better codecs. You don't need top secret OS hooks to accomplish that.
How did they mishandle it? Mishandling it would be to charge too much for it. They just include WMP with the OS. It sure is about Real Player. Look who the plaintiffs are in the case: Sun and Real Networks. How can they sleep at night having to resort to this kind of garbage.
Uh, people would buy it right back up... Bill doesn't own all that much anymore, the market would absorb it, the price might fall for a while, but MSFT corp would use some of its cash to buy back enough shares to keep investors interested.
What behavior is this? All Microsoft is guilt of is creating software that people like. I dread having to install Real Player on my computer. It pops up all sorts of adware for Real.com.
You are on target. We should all be disappointed that the EU has decided that it deserves a portion of Microsoft's profits.
After all, Europeans decided to buy Windows and were happy enough with Media Player that they didn't buy someone else's infersior product. Real Player really stinks compared to WMP, and it pops up annoying adware for Real.com, etc.
Take for example the EU's impending actions against Microsoft. This is a situation where European burocrats are going to enact terrible economic policy in order to prop up European companies who are unable to legitimately compete with Microsoft.
This is partially due to nationalism and partially due to the idea that some Europeans cling to that a command economy makes sense.
Free markets are about free and voluntary choices on the part of businesses and consumers.
Europe's population is roughly 30% socialist in most parts of Western Europe. Socialism is not compatible with the kind of business growth that has led to all of the prosperity we enjoy in the US.
If European consumers want to buy Microsoft, then by getting in the way of that, Monti and the EU are giving those consumers fewer choices and limiting their freedom.
No true businessperson would feel that way. It's a dumb, nationalistic sentiment that results in lower economic efficiency. It's probably one of the reasons why many of those countries are struggling economically in the first place.
The more it sucks, then the more of an incentive there is for companies to stop doing it. Eventually, a good balance will be reached. The balance does need to include copyright if you expect people to wake up every day and create it for you (except for rare exceptions, they need to get paid)...
to have source code produce IL which can easily be understood, allowing for relatively easy reverse engineering, and
to publish much of its own.NET source code on the web (you can compile the.NET runtime on BSD).
This says to me that they have learned from some of their mistakes and are trying to provide enough transparency so that people will feel comfortable building large software apps using the technology.
They might try to collect royalties from Mono, but it really wouldn't make sense legally, because Mono is a completely black box reverse engineering exercise, which is precisely what Microsoft did when it won its first contract with IBM to provide MSDOS.
Microsoft has some huge advantages: Billions of dollars, thousands of top notch programmers, and a huge infrastructure to leverage. I really don't think they're threatened by Mono, because if they were then it would mean they were only an Intellectual Property company, something that most Microsoft Employees would likely find insulting.
I agree with your general point, however consider the following:
C# is more likely to allow a novice programmer to progress to the point where he/she is able to easily learn other languages, and will, if anything, give him/her exposure to some pretty solid design patterns along the way.
Compare that to starting with C++ or Java, where things are more opaque and the novice must spend a lot of time doing things other than actually writing working code.
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I agree with some of the facts you mention.
The problem with your argument is, in order to show that a company abused monopoly power, you have to show how consumers (not competetors) were harmed.
The scenario you describe is one in which Microsoft artificially drives the price of certain products down to $0 by bundling. The supposed terrible result is going to occur when Microsoft kills off all competetors and then starts raising prices.
The problem with your argument comes at this point. When the prices are $0, consumers are extremely well-off. Since prices are still so low, the harm to consumers that everyone is so worreied about hasn't happened yet.
If/when Microsoft begins raising prices, then others will offer alternative solutions, and those that present a better value will win. Right now the market price for web browsers and media players is $0. Microsoft has a distribution advantage, but most people still end up downloading other players. I use iTunes and VideoLan myself, in addition to WMP on windows.
If Microsoft starts charging, I and millions of other people will look to a free alternative.
You're right. I use iTunes (and buy songs through it) because I like the selection. I wish companies other than MS would do usability research for Windows software.
So the thing is, you have to show how consumers are harmed in order to show that a company has abused market power. Being able to obtain superb multimedia software for $0 is a pretty nice position to be in as a consumer. This is why it's Microsoft's competetors who start these lawsuits, not consumers. Consumers have never been happier.
:-)
Plus, it's not as though a few smart people couldn't very quickly create an alternative. OSS alternatives currently exist, but there's nobody marketing them like Microsoft. Now you're going to tell me that Marketing should be illegal
Microsoft has settle the issues you describe and has modified its business practices. Why punish it more? Why not just let people avoid the trouble of having to download WMP separately after they buy Windows?
You don't realize it but you are proving my point. If Windows stinks so much, then the industry is RIPE for competition. It's funny how people miss that.
What would be wrong with that? Consumers benefit by having cheaper hotel rooms. As long as there still is competition, then it's ok. There is lots of competition in the media player area. Winamp, iTunes, Real Networks, VideoLan, etc., etc.
The issue here is that Microsoft's competetors can't compete by writing better code, so they hire lawyers and fight it out that way. It just makes things worse for consumers.
Those are reasonable requests. One of these days, someone will figure out that they can build such a product and sell it for a profit.
Have you tried VideoLan ? I like it a lot, not sure if it plays DVDs though, but it might.
Uh, you haven't defined abuse other than to point to areas where Microsoft is successful.
If you built a hotel and wanted to market it, you might decide to sell rooms at a discount in order to draw clientelle from your competetors. You might even decide to charge $0 for a room for a while. If you want to increase awareness, how is this a bad idea unless you do it too long and sacrifice profit for too long?
How does that constitute abuse? The US case forced Microsoft to modify its business practices. What should Microsoft do, consult the EU every time it wants to release a new product? Or consult the EU before determining what price to charge for it?
Charging $0, btw, is precisely NOT leveraging monopoly power. If Microsoft had monopoly power to leverage, it would leverage it for profit, not for market share.
What is MS guilty of? You should make a list of things that weren't covered in the US decision, because since that took place MS has modified its business practices.
Gephardt would have doubled the size of Homeland Security. Kerry supported the war in Iraq.
Politicians like power, which is why EU officials enjoy looting Microsoft's coffers and taking money that belongs to shareholders. Americans should be almost as outraged as by the importation of Canadian socialized healthcare pharmaceutical price controls.
What is MS doing that others can't? The performance of Real vs WMP isn't different, but the overall quality of the products is. WMP is better designed software and uses better codecs. You don't need top secret OS hooks to accomplish that.
How did they mishandle it? Mishandling it would be to charge too much for it. They just include WMP with the OS. It sure is about Real Player. Look who the plaintiffs are in the case: Sun and Real Networks. How can they sleep at night having to resort to this kind of garbage.
Uh, people would buy it right back up... Bill doesn't own all that much anymore, the market would absorb it, the price might fall for a while, but MSFT corp would use some of its cash to buy back enough shares to keep investors interested.
Check the numbers. Microsoft donates heavily to both parties.
What behavior is this? All Microsoft is guilt of is creating software that people like. I dread having to install Real Player on my computer. It pops up all sorts of adware for Real.com.
Uh, the case was over entirely different issues from the US case. Microsoft got screwed in the EU case.
What media player do you use on Windows? How is it better than WMP?
I've tried a lot of them, and I use two: WMP and VideoLan. RealPlayer stinks and installs annoying Real.com adware popups.
You are on target. We should all be disappointed that the EU has decided that it deserves a portion of Microsoft's profits.
After all, Europeans decided to buy Windows and were happy enough with Media Player that they didn't buy someone else's infersior product. Real Player really stinks compared to WMP, and it pops up annoying adware for Real.com, etc.
This is a sad day for freedom.
Take for example the EU's impending actions against Microsoft. This is a situation where European burocrats are going to enact terrible economic policy in order to prop up European companies who are unable to legitimately compete with Microsoft.
This is partially due to nationalism and partially due to the idea that some Europeans cling to that a command economy makes sense.
Free markets are about free and voluntary choices on the part of businesses and consumers.
Europe's population is roughly 30% socialist in most parts of Western Europe. Socialism is not compatible with the kind of business growth that has led to all of the prosperity we enjoy in the US.
If European consumers want to buy Microsoft, then by getting in the way of that, Monti and the EU are giving those consumers fewer choices and limiting their freedom.
No true businessperson would feel that way. It's a dumb, nationalistic sentiment that results in lower economic efficiency. It's probably one of the reasons why many of those countries are struggling economically in the first place.
The more it sucks, then the more of an incentive there is for companies to stop doing it. Eventually, a good balance will be reached. The balance does need to include copyright if you expect people to wake up every day and create it for you (except for rare exceptions, they need to get paid)...
Nope, espresso is typically only around $1.30 for a single, so it's not quite as bad as you suggest, but I still feel foolish every time I buy one.
I haven't tried GTK# yet, but I plan to prior to Mono 1.0.
to have C# ECMA standardized, and
to have source code produce IL which can easily be understood, allowing for relatively easy reverse engineering, and
to publish much of its own .NET source code on the web (you can compile the .NET runtime on BSD).
This says to me that they have learned from some of their mistakes and are trying to provide enough transparency so that people will feel comfortable building large software apps using the technology.
They might try to collect royalties from Mono, but it really wouldn't make sense legally, because Mono is a completely black box reverse engineering exercise, which is precisely what Microsoft did when it won its first contract with IBM to provide MSDOS.
Microsoft has some huge advantages: Billions of dollars, thousands of top notch programmers, and a huge infrastructure to leverage. I really don't think they're threatened by Mono, because if they were then it would mean they were only an Intellectual Property company, something that most Microsoft Employees would likely find insulting.
I agree with your general point, however consider the following:
C# is more likely to allow a novice programmer to progress to the point where he/she is able to easily learn other languages, and will, if anything, give him/her exposure to some pretty solid design patterns along the way.
Compare that to starting with C++ or Java, where things are more opaque and the novice must spend a lot of time doing things other than actually writing working code.