Microsoft Mania
RE "(1)Would you care to elaborate on how Microsoft has harmed the consumer. (2)Do we pay a higher price for their products than we would have ? (3)Are fewer people able to tap the resources of the "PC world" because of lack of competition ? (4)Are we forced to accept inferior products ? (5)Has the world been technologically "stifled" because of Microsoft's mighty grip ?" Mike Reddert
Mike, lets peer into the smoke screen a bit:
(1) Yes, the consumer was harmed. I notice you left out the main point of the trial. Microsoft used a monopoly in one area to create a monopoly in another. It's a crime. Does a woman raped have to prove that she would have been better off if she were not raped? Does she have to compare the quality of the rapist's attentions to those of her husband's? Clearly not. Of course the consumer was harmed. If this is not clear to Microsoft, then the OS monopoly the public has allowed Microsoft is in the wrong hands.
(2) Yes, of course. We pay higher prices with this, and all other, monopolies. Otherwise Microsoft would not have responded with such vigor. The MS OS is a higher percentage of the cost of PC clone production than ever. (But this is due mostly to the primary MS monopoly. It's the derived secondary monopolies to maintain and grow the primary that Gates is getting giged for.)
(3) Yes. Microsoft has responded to its monopoly positions to milk revenue rather than take risks in a competitive marketplace. Gates Pooh-poohed the the graphic user interface and the Internet for years. When you only have one man's product available to you, you have only one man's vision. Gates has a reputation as a marketeer and a reluctant visionary, not a reputation as a risk taker or innovator in the industry.
(4) Yes. Microsoft products are inferior because money that went into shareholder's pockets should have gone back into the business. Are Microsoft's products inferior to those of their stifled competition? What competition? Stifleing potential competitor's innovations in order to maintain the monopoly franchise has been where it is at for years at Microsoft. And what a cash cow it has been! Bill Gates has become the richest man in history. For the rest of us, DOS was around for 10 years too long. Windows lacks a user transparent interface, industry standard plug and play,...... (If you use it, you know! Unless, of course, you own shares in MSFT, then your perceptions may be dulled a bit.)
(5) Yes. In the minds of most people, Microsoft has stifled technology in order to maintain its monopoly franchise, but that's the price the computer-phobic public has been willing pay to have one standard OS up to now. In the court case, specific instances of innovation stifleing were pointed out. (Java, QuickTime for Windows, etc.) Looking at the broader picture, in the classic instance of all time, Microsoft was so focused on milking its comfortable monopoly that it draged its feet for 10 years on coming up with a graphical user interface for the Intel based clone market. If tiny Apple could do it for the Motorola chip, why not mighty Microsoft? They just decided not to innovate any faster than they had to to maintain the monopoly franchise. They made money at the expense of innovation. We can't have it both ways now without rewriting history.
People will go along with the idea of one standard OS in general, but they will not tolerate seeing it expanded into other areas where they want to have choices. What folks have granted Microsoft, Gates can loose for Microsoft if he gets too cocky.
As a monopoly, Microsoft prospers at the public's discretion. Lets not rock the boat. It's bad for business.
Hal
PS: Don't be so surprised that people don't see things the way you do. Not everyone has their life's fortune tied up in Microsoft. H. |
