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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (20104)	6/19/1998 10:35:00 AM
From: Pink Minion	Respond to of 24154

Thus the crappy backup facilities in windows marginalize the backup program makers, It is amazing how the professionals in the industry look at this case compared to rest. They think getting a Yugo and an AMC Gremlin is a great deal. Glad that's not a monopoly. Here's what the consumers gets from an ex-middle manager: Message 4849576 Mr. B

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (20104)	6/21/1998 1:35:00 PM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

You never seem to address the future - only current prices. On the contrary, I do think my theory addresses the future. I assume that the predatory scheme by the natural monopolist succeeds and that it then goes back to charging the monopoly price. Consumers are still better off than if there had been no predation. Smaller competitors have to have a survival price basis to come in with new products with better features. In your scenario, therefor, the older, less capable, porkier software product is allowed to squeeze out new, innovative products with artificailly low prices. Yes, the consumer gets the 'current' product cheaper. The trouble is that is all they can get. You are assuming that consumers prefer (i.e., would be better off with) "new, innovative products" that cost money to "older, less capable, porkier software product" that is cheap and/or free. If you are correct in this assumption, then rational consumers will choose the newer product even if the older one is free. For example, I used to pay for and still run Navigator on my computer even though IE has always been free. The truth is, consumers choose a crappy product that is free over an innovative product that is not because that is what they prefer (i.e., what makes them better off). Furthermore, I would argue that for the government to use antitrust laws to promote and/or subsidize tehnologically innovative software over crappy, porky software is itself inefficient and improper. In Bork-World, the purpose of antitrust law is to maximize efficiency or consumer welfare, at the expense other desirable objectives, including innovation, when such tradeoffs are necessary. Maybe promoting innovation is a legitimate objective of public policy, but it's not an antitrust objective. For that, you need a new law. None of these windows features is good enough to buy* on it's own.* I think this comment proves my point. If you really believe in the scenario for IE that you propose, why isn't Office bundled? Why was Microsoft Mail server (postoffice) completely free and now for charge. It used to be a bundled, 'integrated' feature of the operating system. Now I can't even get my old email out of that system. I guess what can be integrated for the sake of us deserving consumers can be dis-integrated too. ;-) Because Microsoft has decided not to do it. That doesn't mean they could not choose to do it or that consumers would not be better off if they did not do it. However, we realize that monopolies generally raise prices and/or lower quality. I agree. BTW, I hope that you can accept this verbal combat as just that and no more. I have the highest respect for your opinions. Nothing you have said has offended me. I only regret that my come-backs are not as tight, well reasoned and knowlegable as they should be. ;) This is totally off-topic, but, just to make your day, here is a story from the Sunday, June 21, 1998 L.A. Times which provides a classic example of what typically happens when the government tries to run something that is better left to the private sector. latimes.com MTA Borrowing Puts the Agency $7 Billion in Debt Transportation: Payments are biggest expense, burdening taxpayers for years to come. Bus service, on which most riders depend, has been shortchanged. By JEFFREY L. RABIN, Times Staff Writer The article goes on to talk about how the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation District has, through years and years of gross corruption and shocking incompetence, literally squandered billions of dollars on a fancy headquarters building, high salaries and below market mortgage financing for its senior executives (on which the MTA has lost millions of dollars in the bad L.A. real estate market), and a subway and train system that costs billions, is plagued by cost overruns and cancelled extensions, and only serve one in ten of mass-transit users in Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, the bus service got so bad for the hundreds of thousands of poor hispanics and blacks who have to rely on it for daily transportation that they filed a civil rights action to try to remedy the inequities. They won, but now the MTA won't be able to comply with the judgment because of the billions in debt incurred to pay for the perks and the pork.