Few companies have the size and marketshare to warrant antitrust investigations. MS is a multi-billion dollar company with 95% of the huge and important OS market. How big a brick do they need to be whacked with to think they may have crossed the line?
Well, how about the fact that they had already been investigated by the DOJ once and signed a consent decree? Wouldn't you call that sufficient warning to be careful?
MS executives were definitely aware of their market clout. They wrote in internal memos that they need to "leverage the Windows asset" to increase IE marketshare. Anyone with half a brain knew that throughout the mid and late 90's there was no viable alternative to Windows. (That's still true to this day.) MS's bullying of OEMs is just further proof of that. A part supplier does not dictate terms unless there is no other option.
Any decent-sized company has a legal department to warn about such possibilities. We certainly know MS has an army of lawyers. Either their lawyers screwed up by not telling management about antitrust dangers or their management ignored the lawyers and screwed up (or it was a calculated risk).
Intel had also come under antitrust scrutiny, but they had the sense to back off. Not so for MS; their management comes across as extremely cocky. I personally hope their gambit fails, but with the change in administration, that's looking less likely....
And before you complain that it's unfair that MS couldn't know precisely when they acquired a monopoly, tough; life's unfair sometimes. I might get pulled over for driving too fast for conditions without really knowing where the line is between safe and unsafe, but I should ease off before getting too deep into that gray area.
Kind of wordy, aren't ya? In any case, I agree with you. I saw the parent as another naive "it's their product, they can do what they want" post. Taken hypothetically, then yes, it invites a debate on completely unrestrained markets and the merits of antitrust laws.
Other people have mentioned they've dropped their Archos and had no problems. Well, within a few months of getting mine (studio 20), someone dropped it from about 3 feet and that was it. Wouldn't turn on anymore. I sent mail to Archos about it and got no response.
I set it on the shelf and forgot about it; I have no idea what the problem is, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
How do we know there isn't a Windows tax on these machines? Maybe Dell has an arrangement with MS to pay them $x per PC shipped, whether it has an OS or not. Just because the machine you get doesn't have Windows on it doesn't mean you didn't pay for it, especially considering the price differential ($0).
You CAN get just the Linux kernel right now, or anything between that and a full-blown distribution. Where can I get just a stripped-down WIndows OS? I just want to play a few games and run Quicken without subsidizing MS's IE, WMP, Messenger, Passport, etc. strategies.
(Yes, I think requiring MS to offer a stripped-down OS at a suitably lower price to OEMs and alongside the "deluxe" OS would be at least part of a good solution.)
No one has ever been able to say how MS is a monopoly.
What ignorant nonsense. Why don't you read some trial transcripts if you really want to know? There's no way MS would be in the position they're now in if the monopoly couldn't be established. Please don't reply trying to dispute the fact, it just makes you look silly.
I recently started thinking about various home wireless network options. I have a linux server and some linux and windows 98SE/XP clients. Does anyone have any recommendations for hardware that would support those machines? Faster is better, natch, and it's just a regular house, so range isn't a huge issue (three stories, though). Visiting manufacturers' web sites obviously isn't a good way to learn about linux support unfortunately, and some searching for linux-specific docs didn't turn up a lot.... Thanks!
I realize I'm getting "old" at 33, but I can't believe people are still willing to sit in line for hours/days to see a Star Wars movie. It was a fresh, huge phenomenon after the first movie way back when, so it was more understandable then. The movies also seemed better. How can anyone get truly excited about this after having seen the last one? Yetch! Even Dennis Miller cracked a joke about the people going to see Spider-man having to step over the "losers" waiting in line to see AotC. I just don't understand it.
Plus, these mainly aren't desktop OS competitors; they're competitors in other markets where MS doesn't have a monopoly but has been accused of using their OS monopoly to unfairly compete. In other words, Sun, AOL, Oracle, etc.
Any chance you have popup windows disabled? Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts&Wind ows, "Open unrequested windows". I've forgotten I usually have them turned off and gotten hit by that.
MS tried with Java, and Sun thwarted them at every step
For someone who says he likes Sun, you're sure taking a pro-MS view of that whole mess. Neither side is angelic, but I can understand Sun suing MS over broken contracts and to prevent them from making bastardized versions of java. On the other hand, MS leaving java out of their products completely is fine by me.
Microsoft should be free to bundle whatever they want with their OS, if they believe it adds value for the customer (and a browser certainly does).
Taking that logic to a bit of an extreme, bundling MS Money with Windows would add value, also. Do you see any problem with that? Releasing a Windows XP+ with that and bug fixes for an upgrade cost of $79 would probably reap more in profits than selling Money alone, plus it'd enhance their control of another important application area (deals with online banks, etc.). Bye-bye Quicken!
I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I imagine this is common in antitrust cases. As has been pointed out elsewhere, federal antitrust suits are intended to restore competition and prevent future abuses. Private suits like Sun's are intended to seek damages (punitive and otherwise) for past criminal monopolist actions against the plaintiff. Now that MS is officially a monopoly, Sun can proceed. That's my understanding, at least....
And to continue with the car analogy, since they're so much fun.... It's not like MS is analogous to Chrysler or Ford (I don't recall anyone buying a PC from MS); it's more like MS is the sole provider of engines to Chrysler, Ford, and all the other car manufacturers, and MS is providing their brand of radio with all their engines. For "free".
There's a legal definition of monopoly, too, and it isn't the same as the one you've produced. Seeing as how MS has already been ruled to be a monopoly, you think the judges are all idiots who can't read a dictionary? This would be an open-and-shut case if it was that simple.
Which cache issues are you referring to? I've been seeing some cache weirdness for some time, but I couldn't find a relevant existing bugzilla bug. For me, after awhile page images and CSS info seems to get lost from the cache, leading to ugly pages with broken image icons.
I found out one of the following lines (not sure if one is old syntax or what) in your mozilla prefs.js file will prevent it from rendering fonts below a certain size:
Linux is the best competitor microsoft has ever had. If anything, this proves the opposite of the anti-microsoft crowd.
As a server, yes. On the desktop, no. BeOS should have been a competitor to MS, but it wasn't, thanks to MS's monopoly. What makes you think Linux will make any in-roads any time soon? Just what do Linux server stats prove to the anti-miscrosoft crowd?
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Rubbish. Consider:
Few companies have the size and marketshare to warrant antitrust investigations. MS is a multi-billion dollar company with 95% of the huge and important OS market. How big a brick do they need to be whacked with to think they may have crossed the line?
Well, how about the fact that they had already been investigated by the DOJ once and signed a consent decree? Wouldn't you call that sufficient warning to be careful?
MS executives were definitely aware of their market clout. They wrote in internal memos that they need to "leverage the Windows asset" to increase IE marketshare. Anyone with half a brain knew that throughout the mid and late 90's there was no viable alternative to Windows. (That's still true to this day.) MS's bullying of OEMs is just further proof of that. A part supplier does not dictate terms unless there is no other option.
Any decent-sized company has a legal department to warn about such possibilities. We certainly know MS has an army of lawyers. Either their lawyers screwed up by not telling management about antitrust dangers or their management ignored the lawyers and screwed up (or it was a calculated risk).
Intel had also come under antitrust scrutiny, but they had the sense to back off. Not so for MS; their management comes across as extremely cocky. I personally hope their gambit fails, but with the change in administration, that's looking less likely....
And before you complain that it's unfair that MS couldn't know precisely when they acquired a monopoly, tough; life's unfair sometimes. I might get pulled over for driving too fast for conditions without really knowing where the line is between safe and unsafe, but I should ease off before getting too deep into that gray area.
Kind of wordy, aren't ya? In any case, I agree with you. I saw the parent as another naive "it's their product, they can do what they want" post. Taken hypothetically, then yes, it invites a debate on completely unrestrained markets and the merits of antitrust laws.
Pretty ballsy to post something like that when MS's monopoly status has already been established in a court of law. Sheesh....
MS has a monopoly. McDonalds does not. Therefore, the same does NOT apply to MS.
Other people have mentioned they've dropped their Archos and had no problems. Well, within a few months of getting mine (studio 20), someone dropped it from about 3 feet and that was it. Wouldn't turn on anymore. I sent mail to Archos about it and got no response.
I set it on the shelf and forgot about it; I have no idea what the problem is, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
How do we know there isn't a Windows tax on these machines? Maybe Dell has an arrangement with MS to pay them $x per PC shipped, whether it has an OS or not. Just because the machine you get doesn't have Windows on it doesn't mean you didn't pay for it, especially considering the price differential ($0).
Hey, fvwm is still the best "GUI", but these days we call it fvwm2! Seriously, I still prefer a customized fvwm2 to KDE or Gnome....
You CAN get just the Linux kernel right now, or anything between that and a full-blown distribution. Where can I get just a stripped-down WIndows OS? I just want to play a few games and run Quicken without subsidizing MS's IE, WMP, Messenger, Passport, etc. strategies.
(Yes, I think requiring MS to offer a stripped-down OS at a suitably lower price to OEMs and alongside the "deluxe" OS would be at least part of a good solution.)
No one has ever been able to say how MS is a monopoly.
What ignorant nonsense. Why don't you read some trial transcripts if you really want to know? There's no way MS would be in the position they're now in if the monopoly couldn't be established. Please don't reply trying to dispute the fact, it just makes you look silly.
I recently started thinking about various home wireless network options. I have a linux server and some linux and windows 98SE/XP clients. Does anyone have any recommendations for hardware that would support those machines? Faster is better, natch, and it's just a regular house, so range isn't a huge issue (three stories, though). Visiting manufacturers' web sites obviously isn't a good way to learn about linux support unfortunately, and some searching for linux-specific docs didn't turn up a lot.... Thanks!
I realize I'm getting "old" at 33, but I can't believe people are still willing to sit in line for hours/days to see a Star Wars movie. It was a fresh, huge phenomenon after the first movie way back when, so it was more understandable then. The movies also seemed better. How can anyone get truly excited about this after having seen the last one? Yetch! Even Dennis Miller cracked a joke about the people going to see Spider-man having to step over the "losers" waiting in line to see AotC. I just don't understand it.
Plus, these mainly aren't desktop OS competitors; they're competitors in other markets where MS doesn't have a monopoly but has been accused of using their OS monopoly to unfairly compete. In other words, Sun, AOL, Oracle, etc.
Any chance you have popup windows disabled? Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts&Wind ows, "Open unrequested windows". I've forgotten I usually have them turned off and gotten hit by that.
Well, what else could he have meant?
His point, which you seem to have missed, is that there is clearly someone out there pelting us with rocks and garbage.
For someone who says he likes Sun, you're sure taking a pro-MS view of that whole mess. Neither side is angelic, but I can understand Sun suing MS over broken contracts and to prevent them from making bastardized versions of java. On the other hand, MS leaving java out of their products completely is fine by me.
Taking that logic to a bit of an extreme, bundling MS Money with Windows would add value, also. Do you see any problem with that? Releasing a Windows XP+ with that and bug fixes for an upgrade cost of $79 would probably reap more in profits than selling Money alone, plus it'd enhance their control of another important application area (deals with online banks, etc.). Bye-bye Quicken!
I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I imagine this is common in antitrust cases. As has been pointed out elsewhere, federal antitrust suits are intended to restore competition and prevent future abuses. Private suits like Sun's are intended to seek damages (punitive and otherwise) for past criminal monopolist actions against the plaintiff. Now that MS is officially a monopoly, Sun can proceed. That's my understanding, at least....
And to continue with the car analogy, since they're so much fun.... It's not like MS is analogous to Chrysler or Ford (I don't recall anyone buying a PC from MS); it's more like MS is the sole provider of engines to Chrysler, Ford, and all the other car manufacturers, and MS is providing their brand of radio with all their engines. For "free".
There's a legal definition of monopoly, too, and it isn't the same as the one you've produced. Seeing as how MS has already been ruled to be a monopoly, you think the judges are all idiots who can't read a dictionary? This would be an open-and-shut case if it was that simple.
Which cache issues are you referring to? I've been seeing some cache weirdness for some time, but I couldn't find a relevant existing bugzilla bug. For me, after awhile page images and CSS info seems to get lost from the cache, leading to ugly pages with broken image icons.
Ah, the joys of having a monopoly....
I found out one of the following lines (not sure if one is old syntax or what) in your mozilla prefs.js file will prevent it from rendering fonts below a certain size:
user_pref("font.min-size.variable.x-western", 10);
user_pref("font.minimum-size.x-western", 10);
Very convenient for those annoying 2-point sites!
C'mon, that's hardware. You're studying electrical engineering, I take it (assuming you helped)?
As a server, yes. On the desktop, no. BeOS should have been a competitor to MS, but it wasn't, thanks to MS's monopoly. What makes you think Linux will make any in-roads any time soon? Just what do Linux server stats prove to the anti-miscrosoft crowd?