Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (9987)	5/29/1998 10:03:00 PM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Respond to of 64865

Cheryl, Maybe these problems were inevitable, because the PC was designed as an off-the-shelf product, with no proprietary ownership. It invited competitors into the software arena with the expectation that no one would ever try to monopolize it (it's pretty naive to think that way). Focusing on this issue of monopoly: Hey, who hasn't had hours-long games of Monopoly, the board game. An interesting game, which at the basic level the goal is to get all the properties, or else get all "the good ones", or "all the cheap ones" or "all the railroads". The game rules even rewarded you with the advantage of charging more if you had a "set" of like-kind properties. What I'm pointing out here is that earning/attaining/growing/inventing what ends up to be a monopoly is not against the law per se. But most people are automatically suspicious of a monopoly's intentions or actions. The reason is of course that with a commercially valuable monopoly, however obtained, comes power. Power to price, power to design and lead, power over those who choose to make themselves dependent upon those things which the business which the monopoly is engaged in can provide. Not only is a monopoly not illegal per se, but in the case of MSFT, I very firmly believe that the PC consumer is indeed better off with a dominant OS, for obvious reasons. Even in the anti-trust complaint, the DOJ sort of tips the hat to this rather obvious aspect of the PC operating system. A little reluctantly, I thought, but the issue was acknowledged, anyway. Does that mean there should never be change to maybe a new and different "dominating OS"? Of course not. But it's the market's place to decide. Maybe if it wasn't MSFT, it would have been someone else. Now that the PC is a successful product, everyone is screaming bloody murder, so the Federal Government feels it is their responsibility to do something about it, and MSFT is going to pay the price. It would have been someone else, OR we would not have the vast and powerful choices of software, peripherals, hardware, etc that we have today. Sure the envious of MSFT are screaming for a piece of the pie, and that is the nature of corporations: They desire profits. Now I'm sure some are screaming bloody murder too, but there's no law that says all corporations which, since inception, must go on existing. If they can, they may, and if they can't they shan't. Sure there are bullies who won't play by any definition of fair play. There are people who can make a simple board game of Monopoly turn miserable. There are people who, when holding a key property, will not let it go for any price except one which tilts more than obviously in their favor. Such people find a stalemate preferable to continuation of play. Is Microsoft such a player? We'll have to wait for the evidence at trial. Lastly, one of the articles I've read on the Sherman anti-trust act says that the powers vested in the DOJ to enforce this anti-trust act are so broad, that they can literally invent new offenses as they go along. Maybe the author of the article was taking things out of context, I don't know. But I thought one of the reasons for the Sherman anti-trust act was to protect consumers. Actually I thought that was the only reason. I just don't see consumers stepping up and claiming harm from MSFT.