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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21642)	11/22/1998 2:37:00 AM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Here are some great articles on Microsoft's business practices and prospects (as distinguished from the Antitrust case). They are pretty basic stuff for most of the regular people on this thread, but they provide a good summary of all the things wrong with Microsoft. They are so good, in fact, that I just had to link them. Is Microsoft in Trouble? Could be... fool.com A Look at Microsoft's Record: Can it continue this way? fool.com The Death of Windows: Rob thinks it's coming fool.com Microsoft's Legal Troubles: Windows into the industry fool.com As for "choice cuts," there are so many, it's too hard to pick and choose. I'll limit myself to this one, from the article on the Death of Windows: In the leaked documents, Microsoft more or less concedes the superiority of the Open Source development model. It acknowledges that it produces more stable and efficient code, and does so more rapidly than traditional software development. Like the scientific community, the widespread peer review and parallel development efforts of Open Source work quite well. Quoting from the document, "The ability of the OSS process to collect and harness the collective IQ of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing." * * * Dan, feel free to post whatever additional parts of these articles you think I should not have left out. ;)

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21642)	11/22/1998 2:59:00 PM
From: Bearded One	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

But, there is no connection that I can see made between that conduct which is definitely harmful to a competitor, and harm to competition, i.e., some measurable reduction in consumer welfare. I would think that any harm to any competitor hurts competition by definition. Thus, the harm has to be offset by some benefit to consumer welfare. Assuming this make legal sense, then if the DOJ shows that Microsoft's actions did not benefit the consumer in any way, then there was no offsetting the harm they did to the competitor and thus consumer welfare was reduced. Perusing the DOJ exhibits on the OEMs, I get a sense that we'll be seeing the following complaint from the OEMs: That they would have liked to have differentiated product lines, but that Microsoft prevented them. For example, a "kids computer," an "internet computer," a "geek's computer," all with different software and graphical shells available from startup. Note that Apple has shell differentiation with their 'At-Ease' graphical interface, their iMAC, and their regular Mac's. This differentiation would have enabled them to compete with each other on something other than price. Also, they claim in the documents that their customers want differentiation, but that Microsoft forbids them from doing it. My next post will have a letter from HP to Microsoft about this issue. What do you think of the accusations (which the press seems to have accepted) by Steve McGready that Microsoft forced Intel to stop software research? That lack of research harms us, but is that a direct claim against Microsoft or is it just a demonstration of their power, or is it bubkis? As for Hayek, I guess I'm going to have to read him.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21642)	11/23/1998 3:14:00 AM
From: Keith Hankin	Respond to of 24154

One interesting question, which I do not have the answer to, is how "cast in stone" that 5 percent figure is. In other words, how much market power is really necessary to trigger Sherman 2? Why the ability to raise prices only 5 percent? Why not set the threshhold at, say 20-30 percent? And, should it be the same in all markets, regardless of their characteristics? Regardless, I suspect that it can be shown that MSFT overcharges by at least 30%, probably more like 50% or more, by showing that their profit margin is much higher than it would be if there was legitimate competition.