Gerald, this assumption that Microsoft has a 'natural monopoly' irks me.
Do you have a cellphone? What type is it? Who's your long distance carrier? What type of phone do you use at home? Nokia, AT&T, PacBell, BellAtlantic, Ericcson, QualComm, MCI, Sprint, Quest and others all seem to be able to work together to enable the biggest most complicated computer network ever made-- the phone system. Multiple hardware vendors, multiple protocols, copper, fiber, satellites, and everything works.
Same for television stations and TV sets, video casette recorders and players, the compact-disk industry, radio stations, Hell, just about any major consumer techology you can think of has standards, interoperability, and, I might add, much better reliability than the OS market dominated by Windows.
Yet somehow we're theoretically better off with one O/S that everyone uses. Bunk. |
