Gerald, I wonder if you'd like to comment on another economist's view I brought up a while back in Message 7096978 . This one being Robert Hall of cheap suit fame, also a 3rd cousin of mine who taught my high school physics class.
Actually, this one is a Hoover Institute economist. As ever, I won't judge the details of the economic policy argument, which quickly get into political philosophy issues at this level. Way too esoteric for hearts and minds guy. I will extract just a couple points from the summary of Hall's paper at netecon.com, though, to maybe stimulate discussion. (full paper at netecon.com
The government must prove five elements to prevail in this challenge: (1) there is a distinct relevant market for the desktop operating system, (2) Microsoft has monopoly power there, (3) Microsoft's exclusionary conduct has a dangerous probability of keeping rivals out of the operating system market, (4) the conduct is not justified by efficiency considerations, and (5) the conduct has caused substantial harm to the consumer.
This sounds like a pretty serious burden, though not insurmountable. On the dreaded "harm to consumers" issue, my line, as ever, is that maybe the consumers would like an OS that sucks less. Also, maybe they'd like to have a chance to have some say in what products succeed and fail, rather than relying on Bill to kill what's "bad for consumers" before it hits the market.
The Netscape-AOL merger would generally be in the consumer's interest, but it has no prospect for weakening Microsoft's grip on the desktop.
Right, I never understood the Microsoft defense line on that one. Another one of those context things I think. |
