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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 3:50:00 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570742

RE:"I am TOTALLY disgusted and seriously reconsidering moving my new venture to the US. Because, heaven forbid we should be successful and broken up because someone felt like whining to the goverment rather than trying to compete." Too many Lawyers. Government for the Lawyers, by the Lawyers. The backlash of the Microsoft case will be felt for some time to come. I suggest you send a letter to the Whitehouse and DOJ...explaining your worries. Maybe a cc to the Washington post and NY Times. Jim

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 3:55:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570742

Steve, The whole anti-trust legislation is based on a very weak premise, and is only selectively enforced. The whole US justice system is in a free-fall, approaching that of the banana republics. On the plus side, the US government does not handcuff the companies regarding hiring and firing employees as much as other countries. Joe

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 4:28:00 PM
From: Scot	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570742

I am TOTALLY disgusted and seriously reconsidering moving my new venture to the US. Because, heaven forbid we should be successful and broken up because someone felt like whining to the goverment rather than trying to compete. Steve, Better watch out, they have antitrust-type laws in the EU as well. ;-) Although you guys don't have Janet R. -Scot

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 4:30:00 PM
From: that_crazy_doug	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1570742

<< Isn't your country based on the very idea of the free market economy. How can your government possibly feel it has the right to dictate to a company (Microsoft) how it does it's business. >> Well the government has the right because enough people got upset about how monopolies used to run. Whether you agree that the government should stop companies from screwing their customers is another issue. I'm not the most well studied on monopolistic rules, however I believe it is considered a violation of monopolistic power to use your dominance in one market to dominate another market. Microsoft has definitely done this on countless occasions.

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 4:57:00 PM
From: Paul Ma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570742

Hi Steve, I agree that the government should not punish a company for doing too well. Ayn Rand has corrupted me. Paul

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 6:29:00 PM
From: Mani1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570742

Steve, DOJ is not trying to break up MSFT because it is successful or has strong market share. That is irrelevant. MSFT was found guilty (rightly so) of using that monopoly to destroy its competition. Destroy its competition not by better product, but by using its monoply. THAT IS ILLEGAL! MSFT has been the industry thug and has greatly hurt consumer. Windows is not a good OS and is very over priced. I have been very critical of MSFT since early 1990's. Even today I cannot go to fry's and buy a computer without windows! MSFT forced Compaq to not include Netscape, or they would pull the Window's license, which of course would be the end of Compaq. There are waves of internal memos and emails which shows how MSFT destroyed Netscape by leveraging its OS. How about manipulating its windows's code so it would not work with Real networks player. There are many more examples. CEO testified to these under oath and it was backed up by solid evidence. How soon we forget how much damage MSFT has done! Last time DOJ went after them they did not have the balls to do anything about it. And this time everyone is bitching because their portfolio is down and they want to blame DOJ. I certainly hope that DOJ does what is right and punishes MSFT for all the damage it has caused the industry, and it does something to make sure MSFT will not continue to do so. Mani

To: Steve Porter who wrote (108300)	4/28/2000 8:44:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 1570742

Jeez, as a long time follower of that other, uh, action, I should leave this go. But. . . Microsoft is in trouble now mostly because they screwed up at trial. Bill, being a hands on kind of guy, ran the whole legal show, and ran it badly. Now the company line is that they're going to PR their way out of it, which is more or less what the company line was all along. Maybe it'll work, who can say? If Microsoft wanted to claim that antitrust laws were obsolete or economically wrong, they could have put up 12 economists on the stand. Instead, they put up 11 random execs who didn't hold up very well, and one economist who didn't hold up very well either. They could have done better, but whining about how unfair it all is won't change the record.