Does COCA COLA have over 85% of the worldwide cola market?
Is this a trivia question? Is someone implying that if a company has 85% of some market that they no longer have the right to display their company logo on the product they sell? What kind of commie idea is that?
Do people know that the first Ford Model A's came standard with no steering wheel? The steering wheel was optional That's a fact. My father bought one of those cars. I asked how Ford expected people to drive? My father said that there was a steering column, and some people simply bolted on an iron bar to the column, thereby eliminating the need for a steering wheel to be a standard part of the car. Now let's say some energetic fellow became successful at selling steering wheels to new car owners who had declined to have one installed at the factory. Now we know that the auto manufacturers began providing the steering wheel as standard equipment.
I wonder if the Dept of Justice forced the auto manufacturers to cease providing the steering wheel as part of the standard automobile. I guess they must not have done so, or else if they did, they reversed themselves later. Let's look again at just one idiotic statement by DOJ attornies in today's news:
They also challenge Microsoft's practice of bundling applications programs, especially its Internet Explorer browser for viewing the World Wide Web, with its Windows operating system, because they say it leaves companies that make similar programs with no viable way to compete.
Wahhhhhhhhh.
Too bad. The browser is now part of the standard operating system, and properly so. Nobody can argue that accessing the internet is not an important operating function necessary for today's PCs.
One example of supporting the argument that accessing the internet is a function that properly belongs with the operating systerm:
Because of the rapid proliferation of new peripheral products, and the need for easy installation of these printers, scanners, sound cards, video cards, monitors, etc, MSFT has invented something called "Plug and play". This feature only works if the hardware item is known to the operating system before-hand. So, with Win98, updates for plug-and-play data to support new peripherals are periodically downloaded to the PC via the operating system, using the internet. Clearly this is a great innovation, designed to make PC users lives easier.
Microsoft will win the argument that browsing capability is not an "extra" "optional" capability for today's PC users, and as such, this capability properly belongs to the operating system. MSFT produces a very popular OS, and has a right to improve that OS, for the benefit of consumers.
It is sadly ironic that in the name of "protecting" the consumer under anti-trust laws, the DOJ wishes to take away from the consumer a useful and necessary feature of the OS.
These DOJ attornies are no more than shill's for Netscape Communications. MSFT will win this case. I applaud Bill Gates for standing up for freedom. |
