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To: Brian Malloy who wrote (28611)	10/18/1999 9:21:00 AM
From: ToySoldier	Respond to of 42771

I'm sorry Brian, I disagree with your opinions. Please explain to me and this board why "outdated concepts of monopoly". A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly. MSFT clearly has one in the desktop OS - no matter how much the MSFT and its Lemmings want to convince others that they dont have a monopoly. The concepts of a monopoly and the anti-trust regulations are still valid and still clearly needed. As new technology and businesses appear, the definition of a monopoly for this new area simply have to be defined - which is not that hard. Once defined, the abuse that MSFT has placed upon the industry and any of its competitors via its monopoly read like a novel. They immorally and even illegally swing their monopoly around in the industry like a sword. Cutting down any hopeful upstarts with great new technologies and concepts that the industry would potentially have benefited in the long run - even technologies that did not relate to the OS field but had to rely on this OS (i.e. the browsers). Please dont tell me that issues like Linux water down my argument. If a group of grass-roots, not-for-profit, platform loving, MSFT hating industry geeks have to give away a competing desktop OS in order to capture enough marketshare to be considered a threat to MSFT's current marketshare, then I would say that MSFT has a clear monopoly. I am not saying that MSFT must be destroyed - far from it. I am only saying that any company with a substantial monopoly must abide by the anti-trust regulation. The commend the DOJ and the States for having the guts to take on a ruthless industry giant like MSFT. And your statement about the DOJ's "Holy War" efforts against MSFT - any less efforts against this ruthless and dirty-playing opponent (MSFT) would be a fruitless effort. So please stop cheerleading for MSFT and give us some clear explanation WHY you feel that the monopoly concepts are so outdated. Cheers! Toy

To: Brian Malloy who wrote (28611)	10/18/1999 12:10:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

I love it when people post these ridiculous claims that MSFT is being unfairly treated! You know what, it's about time MSFT got some attention and not the glowing cooing kind they get from Wall Street. Not that their stock doesn't deserve it - it's a great performer and I've jumped onto that bandwagon more than a couple of times but please - MSFT is in no way an "innocent babe" here. Just because a monopoly can claim that there is some competition out there someplace building a bigger and better mousetrap doesn't exclude MSFT from current anti-trust regulations. I'm sure AT&T could have said the same thing or Standard Oil! Wait....think about it - Standard Oil arguing that another type of fuel can and will be developed by someone, someplace that will make OIL a non-factor but until then we should be allowed to OWN every oil well! In a nutshell, this is MSFTs argument - someone will/can replace Windows but until then let us do whatever we want! I don't know the law that well but from what I understand, the future can hold that much weight in the decision on monopoly powers. Also, what will you do when the DOJ wins? Oh yeah...appeal. Kewl :) This is why MSFT is hoping to cut the DOJs budget - so they won't fight the appeal as vigorously. You know this whole Windows thing has been great for the computing industry. It has helped us in defining one platform as a standard which developers can applaud. Once something becomes a standard (by default or whatever) it needs to become open. Here's where the monopoly comes into play - we can't have one company own the entry point into a "standard" computing platform. Heck, MSFT built itself just to combat this very ideal in IBM's hold on mainframe computing. Peter J Strifas ps - anyone else see the shift coming? How we went from large mainframes and dumb terminals into PC Client/Server environments and now the beginnings for pools of servers (clusters) or even mainframes and an assortment of end-user devices (PDAs, PCs, WebTV, etc)? Seems like one nice big circle huh?