Sal, I haven't noticed anyone around here who professes any legal expertise of late, Gerald Lampton hasn't been heard from in a while. He seemed to be getting sort of libertarian at the end, so he might agree. All I'd say is that the alleged Microsoft offer to Vobis of $9/cpu shipped with no DR-DOS, or $19/cpu shipped if DR-DOS was also included, sounds like postmodern economics to me. Doesn't make much sense in "free market" terms. On the business is war / objectivist moral imperative front, it's another story.
Would the tactics used to do so be legal for a small company with no monopoly?
Microsoft was a lot smaller, but IBM-compatible PC's were dominant enough on the business desktop, and they ran DOS. "No monopoly" is debatable. Remember, this is by and large a different suit from the DoJ Sherman action. Civil suit, Caldera (ghost of DR) vs. Microsoft, going to trial in Utah sometime this fall. It might feed into the DoJ action, which is broader in scope, but I don't recall it coming up.
Cheers, Dan. |
