Or that people who can't stand Microsoft and avoid using its products might have an objection to the DoJ trying to pick winners and losers in the PC market. Or that people might just be sick of hearing "M$ is the evul empire and Bill is Sadam Hussein's bed-buddy" or that Microsoft was doing something horrible by giving away a program in competition with a company that sold a similar program...even though the people whining about this seem to think that no one should be able to charge them for any software whatsoever...
A lot of what Microsoft does simply doesn't pass the sniff test. They don't want your customers to have easy access to your application suite, so they cut of your access to Windows, without which you can't sell spit. They say you can't make any deals with third parties like Netscape to bundle their products if it doesn't please them.
In other words, Microsoft has used its prerogative to not sell its product to someone at a special discount that it didn't wish to, and has sometimes (but not in every case) made a requirement that if someone wants to buy licenses of its product at a special discount, that that purchaser agree not to resell the product bundled with a competitor's product.
You don't like these kinds of deals? There's a great remedy - you don't make those deals. If you don't like the way MS works, you don't buy from them. No one forced a gun to the head of any PC manufacturer and said "You gotta sign dis here contract, see..." PC manufacturers made these agreements because they believed it gave them an advantage in the marketplace. Various court rulings and legislation may have made these sorts of agreements illegal - but they shouldn't be so.
This is not rocket science. Basically, common sense says its none of your damn business what I sell my customers, so long as what I get from you is properly licensed. You should paste this in your hat: You're allowed to be a monopoly and enjoy monopoly profits. You're not allowed to use your monopoly power to limit competition.
No, common sense says that if you sign an agreement, you stick to the terms of the agreement. If you don't want to, don't sign the agreement.
Re:If a hungry tiger enters a crowded theatre...
on
Everything Microsoft
·
· Score: 1
...Except in this case, as we check on the situation later, everyone walked out of the theatre intact and there was actually no evidence of a tiger ever having been there.
The very fact that competition is threatening to dethrone Microsoft flatly contradicts the idea Microsoft has a monopoly that creates an impenetrable barrier to competition. If Microsoft can lose its perch on top of the mountain due to competitors knocking it off, it can't very well be considered to have illegally fused its butt to the mountain, now can it?
First, comparing one company being better at making deals and selling products than other companies to murder is just silly rhetoric.
The whole claimed threat of the "Microsoft Monopoly" was that no one could compete with them because their holding such a large portion of the market share made it impossible for competitors to move in on niches that Microsoft dominated. However, if this dominance was something that could change in just a couple of years due to competitors moving in on Microsoft (and apparently is), guess what - Microsoft's dominance wasn't a monopoly. And if it wasn't a monopoly, what did that leave Microsoft as actually having? Market leadership, which is the hardest thing to get, the easiest thing to lose - and never a crime.
The whole point of the judge's finding of fact is that Microsoft supposedly possesses monopoly powers that prevent competitors from moving in on its turf. And yet...competitors are moving in on its turf. So, the claim that Microsoft had those monopoly powers is dubious at best. To correct your example: "Your honor, my client has been accused of stealing a $1,000 bill from Mr. Jones. However, Mr. Jones, after getting up off his...chair, realized he had been sitting on the $1,000 bill all this time. Therefore, may we dismiss this case?"
That's because the Democratic party doesn't have core principles, it has alliances of interest groups. Just like the Republicans.
Libertarianism, and the LP, are about private, consensual activity instead of governmental, coerced activity. I have a hard time swallowing that the government forcing an issue that admittedly was already being addressed by private activity is something any libertarian, no matter of what stripe, could go for.
Even if we pretended that no money is made on Linux, it really doesn't matter if something is free or not for profit - it can still compete, and still counts as competition.
Except this "warlord" doesn't go around killing and enslaving...it gives people and companies who choose to do so products, in exchange for freely given money. Interesting definition of a warlord.
I personally believe that punishing a company for being successful because they got a lot of people and companies to willingly give them money for its products is, actually.
Beating the competition is not killing someone. People have a right to live. They do not have a right to not be out-competed.
MacOS. If you go beyond what's preloaded, you also can find Red Hat, Caldera, and SUSE distributions usually placed fairly prominently in the software department.
The government is us. You and me. Representative Democracy - blah blah blah. . .
I disagree and am rather offended. If you want to take personal responsibility for our corrupt, ridiculous, even malevolent government, fine. Just don't drag me into this - I voted libertarian.
I despise Microsoft. I like Linux and the whole idea of OSS (even if I think some of its proponents are extremists).
And yet I have to say this is a horrible decision.
Frankly, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. Except in the last two decades, even anti-trust proponents have definied a monopoly as being one company being the sole provider of a service in a given market. Lately, some people have been trying to redefine it as "having more market share than we like you having". Sorry, that's cheating. Windows does not have a monopoly even in the very narrowly defined market that the judge decided to consider: "Intel-compatible PC operating systems". (Leaving aside just how arbitrary it is to define PCs very broadly at the beginning of the document, then suddenly say the relevent market is this particular subset of that larger market. Or that he uses MacOS as an example, even though it's supposedly not even in the same market.) There're the various DOS clones, Linux, the *BSDs, BeOS, EROS, QNX, and any of the other less-well-known OSes out there. These aren't a bunch of piddly, meaningless OSes, except maybe EROS - MEGABUCKS are being sunk into Linux, for one, and many of the others dominate over Windows or any other OS in their own niches. This judge is completely off when he talks about lack of commercial viability. And if you even consider the other PC architectures, this becomes more obvious. (And if "PowerPC-based personal computers" is a market, Apple is a LOT closer to being a monopoly than MS.)
Now everyone froths and complains because, c'mon, MS has such a gigantic share in this sub-market, it has a monopoly. Remember, that isn't the definition! You can get other OSes for your computer. They may not be as popular, they might not have as many applications, but they exist. People may not like Microsoft, but it currently having the lion's share of popular applications and users doesn't make it criminal or anything - but the market leader. While people may not like a fairly weak OS like Windows being the leader, Microsoft in no way forces them not to use another, better OS. Windows 98 and NT are two of the best advertisments for Linux around. (Of course, I'm using "forces" in the "making people act against their will," sense, not the "darnit, there's no Linux version of Word/FrontPage/Rainbow 6, so if I want to run it, I will need MS Windows," sense.)
It's not even hard to get another OS. I see more Linux distros in computer magazines than I see AOL cds, nowadays! If Windows was being distributed that way, people would freak. Anyone can pick up System Commander or Partition Magic (with its multi-OS booting program) at the local software store if Lilo makes them squeamish.
Of course, people (and this judge) complain about "network effects" - most applications are written for Windows. Therefore you can't use every application you might want if you run a non-MS OS. The reasoning is that this hurts the consumer since it "locks them in" to Windows. As I'm watching more and more companies release versions of their software for Linux (you know, that commercially nonviable fringe phenomenon that the judge scoffs at - aren't you glad the Red Hat guys didn't have to go to him for venture capital?), I wonder how anyone can buy this argument. Apparently, porting software isn't as arduous a task for companies as the judge thinks if there's money to be made in doing it. (And this completely ignores the possibility of people dual- or multi-booting their computers and therefore making OS selection NOT an exclusive purchase.)
Even in the absence of widespread application porting, even in a world where you somehow couldn't get decent office software (including many that can read MS Office files) anywhere but on Windows, Microsoft is guilty of nothing. Last time I checked, there wasn't a constitutional right to WYSIWYG word processing software (which wasn't even invented for Windows). If MS had the only OS that ran such software, either buy it or do without.
By now, I've made it clear I don't think MS is a monopoly. I'm not so sure the judge completely thinks so, either:
33. Microsoft enjoys so much power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems that if it wished to exercise this power solely in terms of price, it could charge a price for Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market. Moreover, it could do so for a significant period of time without losing an unacceptable amount of business to competitors. In other words, Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the relevant market.
This is one of the classic dangers of a monopoly, according to antitrust theory. It does makes sense: it's a simple supply/demand issue - if there's no competition, one can usually afford to raise prices for a product, often to a very high level. One thing I wonder, though...why isn't it happening? Windows is one of the cheapest commercial OSes out there. The upgrade version of Win98 is less than a hundred dollars, pre-tax. Even the non-upgrade version is cheaper than some commercial Linux distributions you see in software stores. Where's the brutal price hike if MS really has a monopoly? Surely people aren't going to tell me that big, bad MS, after supposedly gaining total power over users, is being nice?
And what "power" does MS have over the industry, anyway?
FUD? MS definitely has the best marketing and propaganda systems of any OS maker. Even the fanatical bent of Linux and Mac evangelism doesn't compare to the slick, sometimes devious, and (let's be honest, here's the real difference) well-executed public relations machine Microsoft has. Now, where Microsoft engages in deception and fraud, I'm right with you in leading Billy to the gallows. (And no, I'm not some MS flunky who thinks making a post bound to be moderated down to -8 in this climate will help the company...) But that's not the majority of MS's efforts, and truth will always out lies. How many people really buy the Mindcraft numbers?
Arm-twisting? Well, Microsoft has made agreements with a lot of PC makers so that they will sell only or mostly MS Windows-equiped computers. Not two of the three dominant ones, (Dell and Compaq, IIRC, now offering Linux boxes) though. If you don't buy that people and companies have a right to make agreements and contracts, I'm not going to try to argue with you. This is an old principle in our society, though...Nor, as I've hinted with my examples, has it prevented large PC makers from breaking from the mainstream (or smaller makers from selling only Linux systems).
Paying off the government? Microsoft is only in this mess because it hasn't paid off the government - pardon me, "shown societal responsibility and unselfishness by making large political contributions to officials with connections in the justice department".
Well, I think I've said what was on my mind. I'll be downright flattered if I can still read it after the moderators sense not-sufficiently-anti-MS sentiment. (This being different from "Pro-MS" sentiment. I like freedom and free markets. Microsoft stinks. Microsoft is the free market advocate's equivalent to the KKK for free-speech advocates.)
I finally managed to reach Britannica's site, and I see absolutely no mention of the service being free for anyone's use (nor can I reach the link to the press release). All I can find is the 30-day free subscription, after which you'd have to pay the monthly fee. Which eb.com has been doing for years. Is this a non-story, or have they restored to out-of-date web pages after a crash?
Ever since I got my ergonomic keyboard (from PC Concepts, don't know if they still make it), my typing has improved in quality and speed. The more comfortable shape of the keyboard is only part of it, though; the division of the keys in the middle has broken me of many similar bad typing habits (in my case, hitting E, R, and T with my right hand was a big one).
Dvorak will easily adapt to the same sort of industry sea-changes as the rise of Windows, fall of OS/2, and the sine-wave-like fortunes of Apple.
He'll just become a stupid, yet popular, columnist in the Linux-dominated business computer world, referring to people as "the same short-sighted fools who doubted the inevitable takeover of Linux".
Oh, that's right. We've never been able to find people in collapsed buildings before these devices. If we'd only had, say, a trainable animal, perhaps, with a good sense of smell that could help rescue workers search through rubble. Or even people with shovels just digging. If only.
Get real. A small private residence is going to be a lot easier to search than a big apartment building that's fallen down, and a small residence is the only thing you're going to be able to make really durably scan-proof. Rig up a faraday cage in your apartment, and when the walls go, it goes.
In fact, super markets often **force** you to sign up for a card by manipulating prices.
Really? Supermarket sack-boys in your country are allowed to put a gun to your head or keep a family member hostage so you have to sign up for a card and continue to shop there?
That's terrible. Move to the US, where you aren't coerced into entering any retail establishment, and most places that have actual supermarkets have a competing store - or several - less than a mile away.
Slashdot Mirror
Or that people who can't stand Microsoft and avoid using its products might have an objection to the DoJ trying to pick winners and losers in the PC market. Or that people might just be sick of hearing "M$ is the evul empire and Bill is Sadam Hussein's bed-buddy" or that Microsoft was doing something horrible by giving away a program in competition with a company that sold a similar program...even though the people whining about this seem to think that no one should be able to charge them for any software whatsoever...
In other words, Microsoft has used its prerogative to not sell its product to someone at a special discount that it didn't wish to, and has sometimes (but not in every case) made a requirement that if someone wants to buy licenses of its product at a special discount, that that purchaser agree not to resell the product bundled with a competitor's product.
You don't like these kinds of deals? There's a great remedy - you don't make those deals. If you don't like the way MS works, you don't buy from them. No one forced a gun to the head of any PC manufacturer and said "You gotta sign dis here contract, see..." PC manufacturers made these agreements because they believed it gave them an advantage in the marketplace. Various court rulings and legislation may have made these sorts of agreements illegal - but they shouldn't be so.
No, common sense says that if you sign an agreement, you stick to the terms of the agreement. If you don't want to, don't sign the agreement.
...Except in this case, as we check on the situation later, everyone walked out of the theatre intact and there was actually no evidence of a tiger ever having been there.
The very fact that competition is threatening to dethrone Microsoft flatly contradicts the idea Microsoft has a monopoly that creates an impenetrable barrier to competition. If Microsoft can lose its perch on top of the mountain due to competitors knocking it off, it can't very well be considered to have illegally fused its butt to the mountain, now can it?
First, comparing one company being better at making deals and selling products than other companies to murder is just silly rhetoric.
The whole claimed threat of the "Microsoft Monopoly" was that no one could compete with them because their holding such a large portion of the market share made it impossible for competitors to move in on niches that Microsoft dominated. However, if this dominance was something that could change in just a couple of years due to competitors moving in on Microsoft (and apparently is), guess what - Microsoft's dominance wasn't a monopoly. And if it wasn't a monopoly, what did that leave Microsoft as actually having? Market leadership, which is the hardest thing to get, the easiest thing to lose - and never a crime.
The whole point of the judge's finding of fact is that Microsoft supposedly possesses monopoly powers that prevent competitors from moving in on its turf. And yet...competitors are moving in on its turf. So, the claim that Microsoft had those monopoly powers is dubious at best.
To correct your example:
"Your honor, my client has been accused of stealing a $1,000 bill from Mr. Jones. However, Mr. Jones, after getting up off his...chair, realized he had been sitting on the $1,000 bill all this time. Therefore, may we dismiss this case?"
No, companies like that have existed for rather a while, and long before Linux was a semi-household word.
That's because the Democratic party doesn't have core principles, it has alliances of interest groups. Just like the Republicans.
Libertarianism, and the LP, are about private, consensual activity instead of governmental, coerced activity. I have a hard time swallowing that the government forcing an issue that admittedly was already being addressed by private activity is something any libertarian, no matter of what stripe, could go for.
Definitely not, which is why libertarians think the government establishing AT&T as a legally enforced monopoly was a bad thing in the first place.
Even if we pretended that no money is made on Linux, it really doesn't matter if something is free or not for profit - it can still compete, and still counts as competition.
Yes, those Microsoft Secret Police guys who beat and torture people for using Linux or Macs are a royal pain in the butt.
Except this "warlord" doesn't go around killing and enslaving...it gives people and companies who choose to do so products, in exchange for freely given money. Interesting definition of a warlord.
I personally believe that punishing a company for being successful because they got a lot of people and companies to willingly give them money for its products is, actually.
Beating the competition is not killing someone. People have a right to live. They do not have a right to not be out-competed.
Even if 90% or more of consumers WANT that OS?
Nah, you're right, screw consumer choice.
Yes, and be sure to ignore the companies that sell x86 linux boxes (and laptops!). They're just inconvenient facts.
Please tell me you don't believe that McDonalds cooks fries in vegetable oil. :)
MacOS. If you go beyond what's preloaded, you also can find Red Hat, Caldera, and SUSE distributions usually placed fairly prominently in the software department.
I disagree and am rather offended. If you want to take personal responsibility for our corrupt, ridiculous, even malevolent government, fine. Just don't drag me into this - I voted libertarian.
To paraphrase Larry Browne, judges are lawyers who happen to ALSO be politicians. WHY do people revere them so much?
And yet I have to say this is a horrible decision.
Frankly, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. Except in the last two decades, even anti-trust proponents have definied a monopoly as being one company being the sole provider of a service in a given market. Lately, some people have been trying to redefine it as "having more market share than we like you having". Sorry, that's cheating. Windows does not have a monopoly even in the very narrowly defined market that the judge decided to consider: "Intel-compatible PC operating systems". (Leaving aside just how arbitrary it is to define PCs very broadly at the beginning of the document, then suddenly say the relevent market is this particular subset of that larger market. Or that he uses MacOS as an example, even though it's supposedly not even in the same market.) There're the various DOS clones, Linux, the *BSDs, BeOS, EROS, QNX, and any of the other less-well-known OSes out there. These aren't a bunch of piddly, meaningless OSes, except maybe EROS - MEGABUCKS are being sunk into Linux, for one, and many of the others dominate over Windows or any other OS in their own niches. This judge is completely off when he talks about lack of commercial viability. And if you even consider the other PC architectures, this becomes more obvious. (And if "PowerPC-based personal computers" is a market, Apple is a LOT closer to being a monopoly than MS.)
Now everyone froths and complains because, c'mon, MS has such a gigantic share in this sub-market, it has a monopoly. Remember, that isn't the definition! You can get other OSes for your computer. They may not be as popular, they might not have as many applications, but they exist. People may not like Microsoft, but it currently having the lion's share of popular applications and users doesn't make it criminal or anything - but the market leader. While people may not like a fairly weak OS like Windows being the leader, Microsoft in no way forces them not to use another, better OS. Windows 98 and NT are two of the best advertisments for Linux around. (Of course, I'm using "forces" in the "making people act against their will," sense, not the "darnit, there's no Linux version of Word/FrontPage/Rainbow 6, so if I want to run it, I will need MS Windows," sense.)
It's not even hard to get another OS. I see more Linux distros in computer magazines than I see AOL cds, nowadays! If Windows was being distributed that way, people would freak. Anyone can pick up System Commander or Partition Magic (with its multi-OS booting program) at the local software store if Lilo makes them squeamish.
Of course, people (and this judge) complain about "network effects" - most applications are written for Windows. Therefore you can't use every application you might want if you run a non-MS OS. The reasoning is that this hurts the consumer since it "locks them in" to Windows. As I'm watching more and more companies release versions of their software for Linux (you know, that commercially nonviable fringe phenomenon that the judge scoffs at - aren't you glad the Red Hat guys didn't have to go to him for venture capital?), I wonder how anyone can buy this argument. Apparently, porting software isn't as arduous a task for companies as the judge thinks if there's money to be made in doing it. (And this completely ignores the possibility of people dual- or multi-booting their computers and therefore making OS selection NOT an exclusive purchase.)
Even in the absence of widespread application porting, even in a world where you somehow couldn't get decent office software (including many that can read MS Office files) anywhere but on Windows, Microsoft is guilty of nothing. Last time I checked, there wasn't a constitutional right to WYSIWYG word processing software (which wasn't even invented for Windows). If MS had the only OS that ran such software, either buy it or do without.
By now, I've made it clear I don't think MS is a monopoly. I'm not so sure the judge completely thinks so, either:
This is one of the classic dangers of a monopoly, according to antitrust theory. It does makes sense: it's a simple supply/demand issue - if there's no competition, one can usually afford to raise prices for a product, often to a very high level. One thing I wonder, though...why isn't it happening? Windows is one of the cheapest commercial OSes out there. The upgrade version of Win98 is less than a hundred dollars, pre-tax. Even the non-upgrade version is cheaper than some commercial Linux distributions you see in software stores. Where's the brutal price hike if MS really has a monopoly? Surely people aren't going to tell me that big, bad MS, after supposedly gaining total power over users, is being nice?
And what "power" does MS have over the industry, anyway?
FUD? MS definitely has the best marketing and propaganda systems of any OS maker. Even the fanatical bent of Linux and Mac evangelism doesn't compare to the slick, sometimes devious, and (let's be honest, here's the real difference) well-executed public relations machine Microsoft has. Now, where Microsoft engages in deception and fraud, I'm right with you in leading Billy to the gallows. (And no, I'm not some MS flunky who thinks making a post bound to be moderated down to -8 in this climate will help the company...) But that's not the majority of MS's efforts, and truth will always out lies. How many people really buy the Mindcraft numbers?
Arm-twisting? Well, Microsoft has made agreements with a lot of PC makers so that they will sell only or mostly MS Windows-equiped computers. Not two of the three dominant ones, (Dell and Compaq, IIRC, now offering Linux boxes) though. If you don't buy that people and companies have a right to make agreements and contracts, I'm not going to try to argue with you. This is an old principle in our society, though...Nor, as I've hinted with my examples, has it prevented large PC makers from breaking from the mainstream (or smaller makers from selling only Linux systems).
Paying off the government? Microsoft is only in this mess because it hasn't paid off the government - pardon me, "shown societal responsibility and unselfishness by making large political contributions to officials with connections in the justice department".
Well, I think I've said what was on my mind. I'll be downright flattered if I can still read it after the moderators sense not-sufficiently-anti-MS sentiment. (This being different from "Pro-MS" sentiment. I like freedom and free markets. Microsoft stinks. Microsoft is the free market advocate's equivalent to the KKK for free-speech advocates.)
And we shall call it...iX.
I finally managed to reach Britannica's site, and I see absolutely no mention of the service being free for anyone's use (nor can I reach the link to the press release). All I can find is the 30-day free subscription, after which you'd have to pay the monthly fee. Which eb.com has been doing for years. Is this a non-story, or have they restored to out-of-date web pages after a crash?
Ever since I got my ergonomic keyboard (from PC Concepts, don't know if they still make it), my typing has improved in quality and speed. The more comfortable shape of the keyboard is only part of it, though; the division of the keys in the middle has broken me of many similar bad typing habits (in my case, hitting E, R, and T with my right hand was a big one).
Dvorak will easily adapt to the same sort of industry sea-changes as the rise of Windows, fall of OS/2, and the sine-wave-like fortunes of Apple.
:)
.5b
He'll just become a stupid, yet popular, columnist in the Linux-dominated business computer world, referring to people as "the same short-sighted fools who doubted the inevitable takeover of Linux".
Probably.
Eric the
Oh, that's right. We've never been able to find people in collapsed buildings before these devices. If we'd only had, say, a trainable animal, perhaps, with a good sense of smell that could help rescue workers search through rubble. Or even people with shovels just digging. If only.
.5b
Get real. A small private residence is going to be a lot easier to search than a big apartment building that's fallen down, and a small residence is the only thing you're going to be able to make really durably scan-proof. Rig up a faraday cage in your apartment, and when the walls go, it goes.
Eric the
In fact, super markets often **force** you to sign up for a card by manipulating prices.
.5b
Really? Supermarket sack-boys in your country are allowed to put a gun to your head or keep a family member hostage so you have to sign up for a card and continue to shop there?
That's terrible. Move to the US, where you aren't coerced into entering any retail establishment, and most places that have actual supermarkets have a competing store - or several - less than a mile away.
Eric the