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To: Ilaine who wrote (6978)	8/12/2001 12:38:32 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

The IATA is a cartel and governments do nothing about. I think they even sanction it! Most commodities (oil, cocoa, tin, coffee) are cartels and no one is fighting against. Imagine if we would live in a world of balkanised Operating Systems OS? Imagine if OS were something similar to data networks before CSCO invested the router. You had AppleTalk, SNA, Novell all of them proprietary and incompatible. The PC's success is due to the concentration of OS and microprocessors in one hand each.

To: Ilaine who wrote (6978)	8/12/2001 1:39:34 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

CB - As a practical matter, antitrust laws are not invoked unless the monopolistic company crosses a line between monopoly through sheer efficiency and monopoly through using methods intended to monopolize, strong-arm tactics like price-fixing and market allocation. ... Then why are all sorts of mergers and acquisitions routinely rejected? Staples and Officemax? (it might not have been these two exact companies). The EU rejects mergers to protect European competitors. The US rejects mergers to attempt to ensure that actual competitors exist while justifying the action as being required to keep consumer prices low. Both approaches are flawed. The European flaw is obvious. The US flaw is the assumption that the overall health of the economy and its participants is tied to low consumer prices, no matter how low and no matter how they are achieved. It is not too hard to see that concentrating on consumer prices at the expense of wages and investment returns is a flawed policy. As you would expect, I also have a contrarian view to most of the rest of your message as well, but I don't have the time to make the arguments at the moment. Suffice it to say that I believe that the combination of self interest and the existence of an overall consumer demand/price curve will normally result in an adequately low consumer price even in the case of a single supplier, without it being too low. Regards, Don

To: Ilaine who wrote (6978)	8/12/2001 5:14:47 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<Stuff like telling OEMs that they must ship the product with Windows or else pay a license fee anyway, or else Microsoft would not sell them Windows, period, is just bad form. The definition for that kind of tactic is market allocation. There's no reason to do that unless you want to drive competitors out of business, otherwise it doesn't make economic sense to refuse to sell your product to a willing and able buyer unless he quits selling competitive products. There's no reasonable justification for that type of activity.> CB, yes, there is. As you surely know, huge numbers of people steal Microsoft technology. When they buy a PC, what else are they going to use but MSFT? Sure there are Linux and other operating systems but I bet most of the reason for people buying a computer without the operating system is to steal one. If the OEM doesn't like the deal, they can use some other operating system in the computers. Microsoft would then have to contend with that competition. It would not have been a problem for the OEM to sell cheap computers without operating systems. The people who steal are the greater criminals. Witholding product from somebody such as an OEM who supplies computers to thieves is not a crime. There is no victim. If the OEM agrees to the price MSFT charges and that price is payment for all computers shipped, then that is fine and there is again no victim - all transactions and use of property are voluntary. Microsoft was the victim. Microsoft is also the victim of the USA government's stupid anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws and envious, ignorant, population. Mqurice