Bill Gates assists in funding first aviation-themed public high school

CriticalMass wrote:


MS "bundles their product with the monopolistic OS"? Bull****.

You write like this, and accuse others of misinformation or hallucination?
Or do you claim to know better than US Federal and EU governments?

If
there's any obstacle out there preventing ANYONE from doing precisely
what Bill Gates has accomplished, providing THE WORLD with a PC-based
operating system THAT WORKS better than anything else out there (you
wanna' challenge the consumer usage numbers?), state what that obstacle
is NOW, before any more of your baseless charges that MS is
monopolistic. It's not a "monopoly" - he built a better mousetrap-
what's your problem with that? We can do that in this country - it's
fair, and it's legal. Get over it.

Oh, please. You don't know how IBM handed MSFT a monopoly? Where've you
been?

Anyway, even if you were correct in your assertion that MSFT achieved its
monopoly through reasonable and legal means, that does nothing about the
assertion that they've abused said monopoly.

Or does this distinction still escape you?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Anyway, even if you were correct in your assertion that MSFT achieved its
monopoly through reasonable and legal means, that does nothing about the
assertion that they've abused said monopoly.

Or does this distinction still escape you?



It does.

By what means did MS achieve "its monopoly"? Maybe, by making software
everyone chose to use? H'mmmm. Maybe, we're on to something here.

The argument that "no one had any other choice", which you and others
apparently try to make, is intellectually vacant, given that there were
never any market forces preventing potential competitors from entering
the fray and providing competing OSes.

C'mon. Where does this bashing "the ones that make it" ever end? Gates
built a better mousetrap. Get over it. You don't want to use it?
That's fine with me. Load up Linux or something equally as goofy, and
see what software apps there are out there you can run. It's your
choice, big guy. Just don't try to argue that MS is junk simply because
it's the biggest dog on the block. That's not a defensible position.

In my view, MS has done nothing but what any other creative company in
similar circumstances would do - innovate.

In a previous article, CriticalMass said:
By what means did MS achieve "its monopoly"? Maybe, by making software
everyone chose to use? H'mmmm. Maybe, we're on to something here.

Or maybe by going to every major computer maker in the world and telling
them "If you sell even ONE computer without Windows on it, we're going to
quintuple the price you pay on the ones that do have Windows on it". And
thus, they went from having a large market share to gaining a monopoly by
illegal means.

You don't believe me, read the transcripts from the anti-trust trial.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Considering the number of wheels Microsoft has found reason to invent,
one never ceases to be baffled by the minuscule number whose shape even
vaguely resembles a circle. -- [unknown]

CriticalMass wrote:

Andrew Gideon wrote:

Anyway, even if you were correct in your assertion that MSFT achieved its
monopoly through reasonable and legal means, that does nothing about the
assertion that they've abused said monopoly.

Or does this distinction still escape you?



It does.

That's a shame. As you'd know if you actually followed any of this, how a
monopoly was achieved has nothing to do with whether or not it is abused
after having been achieved. That is, there's nothing wrong with acquiring
a monopoly (assuming nothing illegal was done en route). But *abusing* it
is a crime.

By what means did MS achieve "its monopoly"? Maybe, by making software
everyone chose to use? H'mmmm. Maybe, we're on to something here.

You really do need to look further into this if you're going to be making
statements like this in public. It'll save you some embarassment.

There are several ways that the monopoly was achieved. My opinion is that
the most important was the first step: that IBM - having its own DOJ
problems around the same time - effectively endorsed the MSFT product while
leaving it free to compete with IBM. The endorsement from IBM - "nobody
gets fired for buying IBM", I hope you recall - went a long way towards
acceptance in the business community.

Once the relationship with IBM was established, but after the clones started
coming out, MSFT negotiated deals with the vendors that precluded their use
of any other OS (in actuality or effectively through pricing). Any company
wanting to compete with IBM in the PC market had to agree to this contract.

The vendors also had to pay for the MSFT license even if a machine was sold
w/o. Thus, there was no incentive even to sell a "naked" machine.

Most people discuss this issue, as it is illegal behavior for a monopoly
(but not for a company not a monopoly, note {8^). They discuss it because
it is what became the crime.

But I still find the original granting of the monopoly by IBM more
fascinating. I cannot imagine why IBM would make that type of
mistake...and so I wonder if this was a result of the DOJ's case against
IBM for abuse of monopoly. Was this some legal tactic on IBM's part?

The argument that "no one had any other choice", which you and others
apparently try to make, is intellectually vacant, given that there were
never any market forces preventing potential competitors from entering
the fray and providing competing OSes.

It was all about being compatible with IBM...which did preclude any choice
other than MSFT.


C'mon. Where does this bashing "the ones that make it" ever end? Gates
built a better mousetrap.

"Built"? You don't even know the genesis of PC-DOS?

Get over it. You don't want to use it?
That's fine with me. Load up Linux or something equally as goofy, and
see what software apps there are out there you can run. It's your
choice, big guy. Just don't try to argue that MS is junk simply because
it's the biggest dog on the block. That's not a defensible position.

That's absolutely true. A monopolistic product could still be a quality
product. Any arguments that the MSFT product is poor must be made on
grounds like the lack of security, the insufficient memory protection, the
bloated kernel, etc.

In my view, MS has done nothing but what any other creative company in
similar circumstances would do - innovate.

My cat thinks I'm God. She's about as correct as you, for the same reasons:
insufficient information for intelligent analysis.

What innovation? The GUI comes from Xerox, the kernel didn't have 1970s
technology for safe multiprocessing until the 1990s, it's a step backwards
in engineering to bundle the UI and the kernel, ... so what innovation?

The only innovations I've seen have been on the business side...and these
have tended to end up in court.

Enron was innovative too, I suppose?

- Andrew