Gilette gives their razors away so you will buy their blades.
Another tired old saw. Gilette bundles various blade holders together with their blades. Do you have any evidence that Gilette currently or in the past ever actually "gave away razors" as a matter of course? that is, handed out the blade carriers, free of charge, with no concurrent purchase involved? They may have done that sometime in the past, I don't know, but I've never seen such a thing in my lifetime. Maybe isolated "free after rebate"/free sample things, but not like the popular story goes.
The consent decree and the bundling issue only applies to separate products, not integrated functions. IE is an integrated function.
Uh huh. And would you care to define "integrated function"? As distinct from "tied product" or "bundled product"? Presumably, it's one of those ham sandwich things, what Microsoft says is integrated, is integrated. Or do you have a more substantial definition in mind?
The nature of capitalism is competition. As a result there will be winners and losers.
Right. The nature of our system of government is to accept the rule of law, or pay the consequences. It's not up to philosophers of "capitalism", whatever that word means, to say what the rules business es are to operate under. Microsoft presumably has no problem using the courts to enforce its contracts. Microsoft has no problem getting the President to send envoys over to your favorite overseas market to try to get them to create and obey something like the laws we agree to live by here wrt "intellectual property". But somehow, the very idea of compliance with antitrust law is beyond the pale here.
So, here's another question. Remember, nothing in life is free? What, precisely is the cost to us all of "free" IE, in its various guises? Or do you disagree with that particular little chestnut? If so, perhaps you could take up the matter with Mr. Middleton.
Cheers, Dan. |
