JFD: I sense however that you have been "harmed" (annoyed might be better word) as a competitor rather than as a consumer.
No, as a customer. One with 20 years experience in the industry and 15 years architecting computer networks. I could bore you to tears (and a first draft of this response would have) with ways in which Windows is a defective, unsupportable product and Microsoft is an arrogant, unresponsive supplier. But doing so would only distract from the central point I would be trying to make: The only reason that I continue to use Microsoft products is that, for very many applications, I do not have any real choice in the matter. You can say I do until you're blue in the face but that won't change the fact that I don't. I ran a Unix-only network for 10 years and ultimately could not continue doing so because the only way to provide modern, widely-compatible applications was by putting Windows boxes on everyone's desk.
Dealing with Microsoft is very much like dealing with a monopoly Cable TV service provider, if you've ever tried this. The only reason people keep buying their services is because the only alternative is no service. The fact of Microsoft's monopoly is undeniable.
This is not about the "Government calling the shots". This is about Microsoft breaking the law. Microsoft is free to be as successful as they like, they are free to provide terrible service, to insult their customers, and to charge prices as high as they like. They are even, given the baffling legal acceptability of "as-is" shrink-wrap software licenses, free to ship egregiously defective products. What they may not do is wield their monopoly power to make it possible to act this way without the massive loss of market share that would normally follow. "Everyone else does it" is not a sufficient defense. Those other companies are not monopolies. In fact, there are undoubtedly mechanisms that Microsoft quite properly used in the past that would be illegal for them to use now that they are a monopoly.
--Bob |
