I disagree with you.
The policy was sound, the adminsitration and implementation of it was inept and corrupt.
Now, open source is competitive and not communist. I was wrong. Microsoft gave away IE, Linux can give away Linux. But Linux is still inferior, and Windows is still cheap.
And, Microsoft is not an evil bad company. And this is not a Microsoft thread. Or an SGI one.
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WASHINGTON -- Netscape Lawsuit, Not Microsoft, Is Anticompetitive
By the Cato Institute
Netscape Communications on Tuesday filed suit against Microsoft Corp. for antitrust violations, arguing that the decline of Netscape, now an AOL Time Warner subsidiary, was a direct result of Microsoft's illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer browser with the popular Windows operating system. Robert A. Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, had the following comments on the issue:
"In the old, dog-eat-dog days, corporations battled for market share by introducing new goods and services, advertising, lowering prices, improving quality, adding features, and offering superior service. Today's corporate giants, like Netscape -- an Internet start-up supposedly mangled by Microsoft, then acquired by AOL for a mere $10 billion -- can avoid the nitty-gritty of competition by sucking up to politicians and, if that doesn't work, filing an antitrust suit to punish any rival with the temerity to develop a better product.
"That is exactly what's unfolding in federal court as AOL Time Warner seeks treble damages for its Netscape subsidiary, which lost the browser wars to Microsoft. As usual, consumers will ultimately pay the freight. They want an integrated operating system. It provides more bang for the buck; it's easier to operate, document and debug; it's less expensive to market and distribute; and it provides a uniform standard for software developers.
"When Netscape had a virtual monopoly in the browser market, Microsoft countered with a three-part strategy. It expanded research and development, priced its browser at zero, and bundled the browser with Windows. What Microsoft didn't do was exclude Netscape, which still controlled 90 percent of the market long after Microsoft began selling its operating system and browser as a package.
"The end result: consumers benefited from zero price, competition thrived, and Netscape worked fine with Windows. Not until trade magazines, then consumers, discovered that newer versions of Microsoft's browser were superior to Netscape's did Microsoft's market share explode. A better product, not tying arrangements, won the battle for consumer acceptance.
"Microsoft's product design decisions, like Netscape's, are better left to software executives than to bureaucrats and judges. Especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11, it's time for the nation's top high-tech companies to get back to the marketplace and out of the courtroom."
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