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

To: pgerassi who wrote (109103)	5/2/2000 5:53:00 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578923

Pete, RE:"The state charges are the same as the federal ones. They are just there to make sure the feds do not give Microsoft a "Slap on the Wrist" but real remedies. They want Microsoft to stop these practices. They feel that Microsoft will simply break any agreement or rules that are set and we will have to do this all over again. Thus the only way is for Microsoft to be structurally changes so that it can not do this again"... Bookmark this one, please. First of all...the states are not suing microsoft because they want to make sure the Federal government does its job. They want in on the action because they want a MONEY GRAB... The want a ruling against Microsoft because Microsoft has deep pockets and they think they can dip into them. They will employ trial lawyers and offer them a cut. You might think Microsoft deserves this, maybe you think you will benefit from it. Let me just say that you have a snow balls chance in hades of ever getting any monetary benefit. If their are payouts...the states will get some which they likely will waste on non related things and the Lawyers will really do well... Now, let's revisit this in about 6 months. RE:"The 10% to 20% of share in any market (Such as PC OS or C++ Compilers for example) simply starts the restrictions placed on monopolies start that much sooner. Thus the proof of the monopoly could be changed to simply show so many percent of the market (although some guidelines on how narrow a market is would probably be necessary). Microsoft could be easily shown to have 20% of PC OS or Single User WP markets. Thus they could not say (although this is rather obvious that they knew) we did not know we were a monopoly. For example, Intel would certainly fit as having > 80% of the PC CPU market and AMD would fit as being in the upper range of that threshold (whether you define it in units or revenue) at around 17% where, Via (Cyrix) would not be covered. Thus both AMD and Intel would be constrained by the stricter "Monopoly" rules (Laws). The FTC and the DOJ already do this for mergers and acquisitions. Thus a large part of the expense in the trial (proving Microsoft had a monopoly), would be much smaller. It it almost always better to use some pretty easy to define and measure rules over a vague label in the laws anyway. Regulation of the practices (No one disputes that, if a company states some facts or presentations that are completely false, that they should be fined and pay a hefty fine. If they purgjure themselves in a court, they should be jailed and pay very large fines), is not any different than the laws covering anyone selling a product or service out in the market today." I fear that not even the most liberal poster here would agree with you of this...not even Scumbria, Kash or Dan3. <G> I'm sure that you don't own your own business. Jim