This has nothing to do with being in the US or not since the companies are not directly involved in the violations.
For example, the US constitution guarantees the right to life. However, that does not mean it is wrong or illegal to sell guns just because someone might use those to deprive someone of their right to live.
Technology is a tool. Technology is not evil in itself.
Undercut?? Undercutting is when you sell something for below cost so that the competition cannot compete at that price.
This is not undercutting by any stretch of the imagination since they're competing with free.
MS can't win on Slashdot. If they raise their prices they get accused of being a monopoly and abusing it. If they lower their prices they get accused of "dumping" and undercutting the competition.
You clearly don't know the difference between what you talking to a lawyer costs, and what talking to the slashdot-crowd costs:)
You clearly don't know the difference in the quality of advice that a lawyer will give and what talking to the slashdot-crowd will give;-)
In this case you get what you pay for. Seriously, when my brother-in-law who's a realtor has a problem getting his wireless networking problems debugged, do you think he should send out an email to his real-estate buddies? What kind of advice do you think he'll get? They all usually have very strong opinions from what "they knew worked" in the past. It's also usually dead wrong. It's the same here.
Einstein, do you want a cookie for figuring that out? There isn't anyone over here who doesn't know that, dumbass.
We all know WHY it happens. It's still stupid that someone with karma 50 can make a post, have it be modded up to 5 and then down to 4 and then still end up with less karma than they started with.
I had this NOC. It was a great NOC. I really like the NOC. It told me where my exams were and stuff. Then it burned up and I was like uhhuhhh. And then I had to look at the university phone book to figure out everyones phone number. It was like... a bummer.
I am by no means an American-basher. The US is the country I've chosen to live in and in my book that counts for much more than someone who just happened to be born here.
However, there are concepts that the average westerner does not have the background to grasp - respect for elders as practiced in Asia is one of those concepts. Similarly, there are concepts which the average person from (name your culture) is not able to grasp - such as why plagiarism in a class report is wrong or why it is so bad to cheat on a test.
Pointing that out doesn't make a an American fanboy or an American basher.
And race is still relevant in the US. Whilst I would agree that the prejudice is suppressed, it definitely still exists.
Read the parent post to my post. The author says that because casteism exists in India, therefore Bill Gates is refusing to do "business that way". By that same logic, other countries would have to stop trading with the US.
Every country has its fringe elements who practice various practices - Indias are no worse than those in most other places including the US.
I can point you to links about racial attacks in the US too. I can also give you a google link. And I can counter your "muslimonline.com" and Pakistani newspaper links with tons of links to news articles on African American websites.
None of this is going to prove that racial segregation is practiced in the US.
And yes, CNN does make stuff up - all the time. And the guy you are refering to was posting a humorous article.
You don't understand. If your able-bodied and sound-minded mother decided to walk around in the streets with the knowledge that traffic would stop for her and not injure her - and if you had the same respect for ones mother as the average Indian does, you would not stop her.
Gandhi didn't change shit. That still goes on day to day, I've seen it firsthand. That country disgusted me at just how insensitive humans can be to their own kind. Cows are worshipped, people left in the street to die.
You are a bloody moron - or a liar - I can't figure out which.
Untouchability is not practiced in India anymore - and hasn't been so for the last 30 years at least. I went to schools with friends who belonged to all castes and the persons caste never came up for discussion except in the context of India's ridiculous affirmative action laws.
Cows are NOT worshipped in India. Cows are respected like a mother because they provide milk, plow the fields and provide fuel and fertilizer - thus taking care of their "children". Trust a typical westerner to confuse respect with worship - especially since the concept of repecting ones elders doesn't exist in the US.
Westerners trying to apply their narrow world views to different cultures will always fail to understand them.
That makes about as much sense as if I said the Democrats should not support something because it goes against the Communist manifesto.
Exercise some intelligence and realize that just because someone is conservative and shares some moral ideology with the Bible does not make that person a Bible-thumper.
I, for example, am conservative but I'm not Christian - I'm an atheist. The two are not inconsistent. Conservativism is much more than brainless Bible-thumping just like Liberalism is more than just repeating the Communist manifesto by rote.
Personally I'm of the mind that radio by defination is free promotion, the webcasters should be charging for it.
That's a great idea! I'm going to take one of the new BMW 7-series cars without the dealers permission, drive it around town everyday promoting it and then send BMW a bill for the favor I'm doing them by promoting their cars.
Seems like you have a problem with the English language. Monopoloy leverage has a very specific meaning. The way you used it is NOT what it means. Call it what you want to, but it's not what the term means.
Scum like you usually don't have a problem with giving your money to criminal organizations. I do.
Again, Microsofts behaviour was NOT criminal. There is a definition for the word criminal and monopoly abuse is not included in that definition.
It's hard to argue with idiots who don't understand the meanings of the words they're using so I won't try anymore. If you expect any respect in intellectual society, lookup word definitions and use them correctly.
The XBox is classic monopoly leverage at work. Use the revenue from the desktop monopoly to dump product on an emerging market and attempt to control it
No, you moron. That is NOT monopoly leverage. Monopoly leverage is when you use your position as a monopolist to gain advantage in another area that you wouldn't have been able to had you not been a monopolist.
E.g. if Standard Oil only sold their oil at gas pumps they owned. They wouldn't be able to do it unless they were a monopoly because then other companies would be able to buy their gas elsewhere.
Using the money is NOT considered monopoly leverage because the money is not considered ill-gotten since monopolies are not illegal. So it doesn't matter that there is a monopoly in one area since that has no impact whatsoever on the other (as long as the money is still being made in the same quantities).
There is no correlation between the console market and the PC industry. Therefore using profits made in one area to invest in another is not abuse. It would be abuse if your PC came with an XBOX-only connector or something but merely using the money is perfectly legal.
No other company can just throw this kind of money away in this market.
Take a look at the financials of some other companies. $177 million is a small amount of money to lose - especially in the investment phase.
You are right that $177M is not just on the XBOX. You are wrong in concluding that the money is no more than $68M, however.
I believe the XBOX was in development last year. So while nothing was being sold, they still had to pay the employees, maintain/invest in equipment, facilities, etc. and spend money on marketing, etc.
Without having a further breakdown, we can't conclude much about how much money exactly was lost on the XBOX.
As the story at the Register [theregister.co.uk] points out, any other business with ventures losing money like Xbox and MSN would kill them off as clearly bad business decisions.
Lots of ventures make losses in their first few years. That's considered an investment anticipating a return in the future.
A normal business, run to increase profits, would look at the margins on Office and Windows and simply jack up their prices. It's an iron-clad guarantee to increase profits at MSFT. There is virtually zero price elasticity of demand [mintercreek.com] for Windows and Office
Do you have analysis backing up that claim? Or did you just make it up? With all the people looking at OpenOffice and Linux right now, do you seriously believe they could increase prices without seeing demand fall off?
3. Most Slashdot readers feel passionately about Microsoft - one way or the other. Posting lame stories about MS make these people read/., thus increasing the page hits so they can attract more advertisers and make more money.
Geez. He has about $30 billion in stock options. Typically, when he makes a donation, he donates stock. The only tax write-off he gets is equivalent to the value of the stock he gave up - so it's as if he never cashed out those options.
You're a cynical fool if you believe he's getting a tax advantage out of donating money to charity. Read some of his comments on the subject of charity. He is worth about $43 Billion. He realizes he's never going to be able to spend that money - that's why he's giving it away - and having the stock price go up doesn't help him because it's still too much money for him to ever be able to use.
Why would Bill Gates give $100 million of his own money to help promote Microsoft? Why wouldn't that be a donation from Microsoft? The Lord knows MS can certainly afford it.
Slashdot Mirror
This has nothing to do with being in the US or not since the companies are not directly involved in the violations.
For example, the US constitution guarantees the right to life. However, that does not mean it is wrong or illegal to sell guns just because someone might use those to deprive someone of their right to live.
Technology is a tool. Technology is not evil in itself.
Undercut?? Undercutting is when you sell something for below cost so that the competition cannot compete at that price.
This is not undercutting by any stretch of the imagination since they're competing with free.
MS can't win on Slashdot. If they raise their prices they get accused of being a monopoly and abusing it. If they lower their prices they get accused of "dumping" and undercutting the competition.
You clearly don't know the difference between what you talking to a lawyer costs, and what talking to the slashdot-crowd costs :)
;-)
You clearly don't know the difference in the quality of advice that a lawyer will give and what talking to the slashdot-crowd will give
In this case you get what you pay for. Seriously, when my brother-in-law who's a realtor has a problem getting his wireless networking problems debugged, do you think he should send out an email to his real-estate buddies? What kind of advice do you think he'll get? They all usually have very strong opinions from what "they knew worked" in the past. It's also usually dead wrong. It's the same here.
Einstein, do you want a cookie for figuring that out? There isn't anyone over here who doesn't know that, dumbass.
We all know WHY it happens. It's still stupid that someone with karma 50 can make a post, have it be modded up to 5 and then down to 4 and then still end up with less karma than they started with.
I had this NOC. It was a great NOC. I really like the NOC. It told me where my exams were and stuff. Then it burned up and I was like uhhuhhh. And then I had to look at the university phone book to figure out everyones phone number. It was like ... a bummer.
Hopefully, when I post this message, slashdot will remove the points I awarded to this article, and your comment will be back to normal.
Don't forget that in Slashdot math, 50 + 1 - 1 = 49
I am by no means an American-basher. The US is the country I've chosen to live in and in my book that counts for much more than someone who just happened to be born here.
However, there are concepts that the average westerner does not have the background to grasp - respect for elders as practiced in Asia is one of those concepts. Similarly, there are concepts which the average person from (name your culture) is not able to grasp - such as why plagiarism in a class report is wrong or why it is so bad to cheat on a test.
Pointing that out doesn't make a an American fanboy or an American basher.
And race is still relevant in the US. Whilst I would agree that the prejudice is suppressed, it definitely still exists.
Read the parent post to my post. The author says that because casteism exists in India, therefore Bill Gates is refusing to do "business that way". By that same logic, other countries would have to stop trading with the US.
Every country has its fringe elements who practice various practices - Indias are no worse than those in most other places including the US.
I can point you to links about racial attacks in the US too. I can also give you a google link. And I can counter your "muslimonline.com" and Pakistani newspaper links with tons of links to news articles on African American websites.
None of this is going to prove that racial segregation is practiced in the US.
And yes, CNN does make stuff up - all the time. And the guy you are refering to was posting a humorous article.
You don't understand. If your able-bodied and sound-minded mother decided to walk around in the streets with the knowledge that traffic would stop for her and not injure her - and if you had the same respect for ones mother as the average Indian does, you would not stop her.
Don't confuse someone who merely agrees with you as being someone who has principles.
Digvijay Singh has been at the center of several scandals. For example.
Gandhi didn't change shit. That still goes on day to day, I've seen it firsthand. That country disgusted me at just how insensitive humans can be to their own kind. Cows are worshipped, people left in the street to die.
You are a bloody moron - or a liar - I can't figure out which.
Untouchability is not practiced in India anymore - and hasn't been so for the last 30 years at least. I went to schools with friends who belonged to all castes and the persons caste never came up for discussion except in the context of India's ridiculous affirmative action laws.
Cows are NOT worshipped in India. Cows are respected like a mother because they provide milk, plow the fields and provide fuel and fertilizer - thus taking care of their "children". Trust a typical westerner to confuse respect with worship - especially since the concept of repecting ones elders doesn't exist in the US.
Westerners trying to apply their narrow world views to different cultures will always fail to understand them.
That makes about as much sense as if I said the Democrats should not support something because it goes against the Communist manifesto.
Exercise some intelligence and realize that just because someone is conservative and shares some moral ideology with the Bible does not make that person a Bible-thumper.
I, for example, am conservative but I'm not Christian - I'm an atheist. The two are not inconsistent. Conservativism is much more than brainless Bible-thumping just like Liberalism is more than just repeating the Communist manifesto by rote.
Personally I'm of the mind that radio by defination is free promotion, the webcasters should be charging for it.
That's a great idea! I'm going to take one of the new BMW 7-series cars without the dealers permission, drive it around town everyday promoting it and then send BMW a bill for the favor I'm doing them by promoting their cars.
Seems like you have a problem with the English language. Monopoloy leverage has a very specific meaning. The way you used it is NOT what it means. Call it what you want to, but it's not what the term means.
Scum like you usually don't have a problem with giving your money to criminal organizations. I do.
Again, Microsofts behaviour was NOT criminal. There is a definition for the word criminal and monopoly abuse is not included in that definition.
It's hard to argue with idiots who don't understand the meanings of the words they're using so I won't try anymore. If you expect any respect in intellectual society, lookup word definitions and use them correctly.
Shouldn't that be Same work / Fewer Employees = More Productivity?
Don't believe the FUD you hear on Slashdot.
Take a look at MSFT's financials. I'm quoting the two relevant lines:
Income Before Tax $2,243,000,000 $4,026,000,000 $3,357,000,000 $1,887,000,000
Income Tax Expense $718,000,000 $1,288,000,000 $1,074,000,000 $604,000,000
The XBox is classic monopoly leverage at work. Use the revenue from the desktop monopoly to dump product on an emerging market and attempt to control it
No, you moron. That is NOT monopoly leverage. Monopoly leverage is when you use your position as a monopolist to gain advantage in another area that you wouldn't have been able to had you not been a monopolist.
E.g. if Standard Oil only sold their oil at gas pumps they owned. They wouldn't be able to do it unless they were a monopoly because then other companies would be able to buy their gas elsewhere.
Using the money is NOT considered monopoly leverage because the money is not considered ill-gotten since monopolies are not illegal. So it doesn't matter that there is a monopoly in one area since that has no impact whatsoever on the other (as long as the money is still being made in the same quantities).
Bzzzzt. Wrong.
There is no correlation between the console market and the PC industry. Therefore using profits made in one area to invest in another is not abuse. It would be abuse if your PC came with an XBOX-only connector or something but merely using the money is perfectly legal.
No other company can just throw this kind of money away in this market.
Take a look at the financials of some other companies. $177 million is a small amount of money to lose - especially in the investment phase.
You are right that $177M is not just on the XBOX. You are wrong in concluding that the money is no more than $68M, however.
I believe the XBOX was in development last year. So while nothing was being sold, they still had to pay the employees, maintain/invest in equipment, facilities, etc. and spend money on marketing, etc.
Without having a further breakdown, we can't conclude much about how much money exactly was lost on the XBOX.
As the story at the Register [theregister.co.uk] points out, any other business with ventures losing money like Xbox and MSN would kill them off as clearly bad business decisions.
You mean like RHAT or LNUX or AOL?
Lots of ventures make losses in their first few years. That's considered an investment anticipating a return in the future.
A normal business, run to increase profits, would look at the margins on Office and Windows and simply jack up their prices. It's an iron-clad guarantee to increase profits at MSFT. There is virtually zero price elasticity of demand [mintercreek.com] for Windows and Office
Do you have analysis backing up that claim? Or did you just make it up? With all the people looking at OpenOffice and Linux right now, do you seriously believe they could increase prices without seeing demand fall off?
Nope. The real reason is:
/., thus increasing the page hits so they can attract more advertisers and make more money.
3. Most Slashdot readers feel passionately about Microsoft - one way or the other. Posting lame stories about MS make these people read
Geez. He has about $30 billion in stock options. Typically, when he makes a donation, he donates stock. The only tax write-off he gets is equivalent to the value of the stock he gave up - so it's as if he never cashed out those options.
You're a cynical fool if you believe he's getting a tax advantage out of donating money to charity. Read some of his comments on the subject of charity. He is worth about $43 Billion. He realizes he's never going to be able to spend that money - that's why he's giving it away - and having the stock price go up doesn't help him because it's still too much money for him to ever be able to use.
Why would Bill Gates give $100 million of his own money to help promote Microsoft? Why wouldn't that be a donation from Microsoft? The Lord knows MS can certainly afford it.
You misspelled M$.