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To: damniseedemons who wrote (20826)	9/3/1998 8:12:00 PM
From: Bearded One	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Keith, a company can have market power without having a monopoly Not to this extent. Microsoft threatened to double their price to Vobis. Now the whole thing is unclear because you can say that no, they didn't double their price, they just offered a 50% discount if Vobis played ball. But consider: Can Coke double their prices without worrying about Pepsi moving in? Can Ford double their prices without worrying about GM or Honda?

To: damniseedemons who wrote (20826)	9/3/1998 8:58:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Sal, how many computers (IBM PC compatible) shipped without MS-DOS, or PC-DOS? Currently, there seem to be a lot of people saying PC-DOS was a competing product, somewhat contrary to my understanding. As for the other DOS compatibles, did they ever really have a shot? Did any major manufacturer bundle them? And numerically speaking, was there ever a time where anything was particularly close to IBM-PC compatibles? As for OS/2, that comes up a lot too, and again the popular line is somewhat contrary to my recollection. OS/2 was a joint Microsoft/IBM development, and my understanding is that Microsoft was allowed to sell it to non-IBM OEMs. It might be correct to call it competition to DOS, but Microsoft had a fair amount of control over it too. Took a long time for IBM to straighten that one out after IBM and Microsoft split. I imagine Microsoft still collects royalties on OS/2 also, like they did with Unix until recently. Anyway, in numerical terms, DOS and compatibles seems big enough to be considered a distinct market under the law. Oops, that's a legal opinion, scratch that. I don't know, Microsoft could have just sold Windows as a new OS with DOS compatibility, but that doesn't seem to have been the way it was advertised. We'll see what counterarguments they have at trial, as opposed to the pre-trial PR front. Like Brad Chase said, it's all an urban legend anyway. Perhaps another junior employee using colorful language, eh? Cheers, Dan.