Hey, you lazy anti-government wannabees ... this is called an investigation into illegal activities. That is the job of the Fed. Look at the Constitution occasionally. Even Wall Street and Mom and Pop businesses need to know that possible improprieties will be checked out.
If the Feds overreach and play god, then sure, complain to high heaven, but being knee-jerk reactionaries carrying Glen Beck's water is pretty stupid.
Sincerely
Thomas Jefferson
As a Stumptown resident -- the mecca for recipients of government handouts, with one of the highest unemployment rates among major US cities -- it is not surprising that you espouse such a view.
Microsoft adamantly refused to acknowledge that any of its behavior was illegal and make any changes. It's a situation they could easily have avoided. They chose to go head-to-head with the government, and lost -- just as everyone who was paying attention at the time knew they would. Microsoft's approach was supremely arrogant and amazingly stupid.
Really? I don't see it that way at all. I see it as a perfectly logical and intelligent (in a capitalist society) way of dealing with the situation. They fought, they delayed any decisions for 10 years. Along the way, did they suffer any business while this went on, mostly unbeknownst to the ignorant public? Hell no.
The best thing to do in this sort of situation is claim innocence and delay, delay, delay. That way they delay paying. That is a good thing for capitalist entities. They pay the lawyers regardless, and their objective was to keep it going, keep the feds off their backs and delay any decision.
It's the decision that is the stupidest. The decision should have been swift and it should have followed the AT&T breakup (2 companies - OS and Apps). Then the consumer and the industry would be benefitting from government intervention.
Of course, they need to increase their visibility, nothing worse for this administration than going 5 seconds without the complete attention of the media. And they need the money, beaurocratic surges with rainbow lollipop names aren't cheap. They're just licking their chops over anything Internet as a potential tax revenue stream. They'd love to have bigger cut of those iTunes sales, they're already taxing everything else to death.
And of course nothing is more important than going after the 30% share of the music industry sales that Apple commands. If the DOJ spent 5 minutes thinking this one through, 2 other facts would have torpedoed this stupid idea:
-iTunes has been the only growth sector of the music biz for almost a decade, the rest has been in sharp decline.
-You can load any other retailer's music into your Apple products.
Of course what would torpedo the torpedoing of the investigation would be facts like:
-iTunes has ~70% of online music sales. You know, the market in question.
-The fact that you can load music from other retails onto Apple devices says little about Apple applying unfair pressure to help ensure the iTunes music store is that source. Apple 'allowing' music from other sources is simply survival. The iPod and iTunes store would have been dead in the water if iPods could only play Fairplay AAC. People would have bought alternatives if they couldn't play their pirated MP3s.
-Online music sales, led primarily by iTunes, has been the only sector of growth for the music biz for most of the decade. That doesn't mean other players in the market should be suffocated.
Thousands of songs, TV shows and movies continue to gush from a gaping hole in the ocean floor threatening to entertain thousands of miles of worth of pristine consumer electronic habits. This could be the worst multimedia spill in the world's history.
Who is at fault for this disaster?
The DOJ will investigate and bring them to justice!!!
I'll wait to see if the DoJ finds something. By the sounds of it, it's just a goose chase (or red herring). The DoJ will either find a couple of little things or nothing, is my guess.
As most have said, Apple does not have a monopoly in anything, be it smartphones, tablets (there are other tablets, believe it or not), music players, or computers. Apple does have a fair amount of power and influence in the consumer electronics field, but I have a feeling most of this is a backlash of the Flash War, in which Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and others have an interest.
Really? I don't see it that way at all. I see it as a perfectly logical and intelligent (in a capitalist society) way of dealing with the situation. They fought, they delayed any decisions for 10 years. Along the way, did they suffer any business while this went on, mostly unbeknownst to the ignorant public? Hell no.
The best thing to do in this sort of situation is claim innocence and delay, delay, delay. That way they delay paying. That is a good thing for capitalist entities. They pay the lawyers regardless, and their objective was to keep it going, keep the feds off their backs and delay any decision.
It's the decision that is the stupidest. The decision should have been swift and it should have followed the AT&T breakup (2 companies - OS and Apps). Then the consumer and the industry would be benefitting from government intervention.
It followed a certain sort of logic of the kind you describe, but I think in the end, flawed logic. The most significant outcome of the case was Judge Jackson's Findings of Fact, which were used to power several huge private antitrust settlements, which cost the company billions. Then the EU got in the act. In retrospect, I think it's clear that Microsoft would have done themselves a big favor had they headed off this outcome by making relatively small changes in the way they did business. Few companies are so bull-headed in dealing with the government as Microsoft was.
Sure, it would have been better had the government acted more swiftly (ideally, with the original FTC complaint in 1992) but after that, the real delay was in the courts, which is impossible to do much about, especially given the complications in this case -- massive amounts of evidence, depositions, the need to appoint Special Masters, and that sort of thing.
I was never a big fan of the breakup plan. This would still have allowed the "OS Division" of Microsoft to leverage Windows, which was the cornerstone issue.
According to Steve Jobs' letter, Apple asked Adobe for a demo of a working version of Flash on iPhone OS, and nothing...
So, then they go ahead without Flash, and become the bad guys. Who are the proprietary format folks in this? The HTML5 promotors or the Flash promotors????
That's exactly the Flash issue in a nutshell. Adobe never delivered a product.
Apple should have simply said "Adobe has never delivered a version of Flash which works on the iPhone" and left it at that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nervus
How is what apple is doing with their devices any different with what Sony does with the PS3, Microsoft does with is XBox, or Nintendo does with it's Wii. They are all closed ecosystems where the developer dictates what's available on the system. They also dictate what people can write and distribute on their systems. It's the same thing. They are all closed operating systems that choose what they want to support and don't want to support. An ipad, iPhone, etc are not computers. They are closed proptietary devices that a much more limited in scope as are traditional gaming systems
QFT.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss
If it can be found that Apple has enough power in a definable market to interfere with free competition, and it can be found that they've abused that power, then they might have a problem with the DoJ. Presumably the DoJ is looking at some complaints from competitors, and before anyone gripes about how the law is being used to "punish" Apple for being "successful," understand that antitrust laws are rarely put into play when nobody has complained. These laws are entirely about competition.
OK. So what's the problem? If as people are arguing, Apple's not offering Flash on the iPhone is a bad thing, it helps the competition. If Apple's control of the development tools is a mistake, the competition will benefit. So why are people complaining? Apple's actions are going to HELP the competition if all the whiners are correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulkas
This is not very different than Apple using their position to 'encourage' the labels from not taking part in Amazon's promotions..
Nonsense. The law has always allowed for things like only offering advertising allowances if the partner complies with your rules. As long as you're not a monopoly and demanding better terms than anyone else, it's perfectly legal.
It followed a certain sort of logic of the kind you describe, but I think in the end, flawed logic.
I don't agree it's flawed logic. It's a risk they took, sure, but the logic is perfect in capitalism, and they had how many years of no change to their business practices, realising full revenue as a result? And, Netscape lost.
I wouldn't ever imagine a company admitting guilt, ever, especially up front. Capitalism demands they deny, obfuscate and continue on their current path. Though they didn't "win" in the end, I think they got off without much penalty at all.
My opinion is that I believe any company that resorts to unsavoury business practices to put a competitor out of business, should itself be shut down. No compromise and no flexibility here. Only then might you see these greedy bastardes acting in a way that I would consider to be heading in the direction of integrity (they will never get there in capitalism, but it'd be nice if they were at least headed in the direction of integrity).
I realise that anti-competitive practices are ultimately not good for the industry and consumers. However, I just don't get any of the issues the DoJ is exploring:
1. So what if Apple doesn't want to allow cruddy Flex apps on its products. Its Apple's platform, why shouldn't they do what they believe is better for their product and their business?
2. How can Apple be the focus of the DoJ for using its muscle against Amazon .. who were themselves using their muscle to get exclusive music deals. This is just business, isn't it? The music companies are free to make the most compelling commercial decisions.
3. Why shouldn't companies that invest heavily in their talent pools .. recruiting, developing, and sharing secrets ... contractually inhibit poaching by competitors? The idea of a cool down period of several months, and / or financial burdens, seems entirely reasonable to me.
So Really I don't get it. It would seem that the US Government want to burden and break the most successful US companies. They are insane.
It really comes down to Apple having a big wad of cash and politicians needing some of that for their campaigns. Microsoft didn't understand that connection in the 90s but now they do. Apple needs to open up their wallets a bit to deflect the DoJ. Obama will pull them in when Apple starts fanning cash at him.
Actually, that isn't really accurate. MS used their dominance of the PC market to force OEMs to not promote Netscape. They 'encouraged' the OEMs to only place the IE icon on the desktop and to avoid placing the Netscape icon there. They further 'encouraged' some not to even install Netscape. Incentives, like financial subsidies for marketing, were generally reported, and the threat was that MS would pull these marketing dollars. There were also claims of MS threatening some OEMs with losing their Windows license for not playing ball.
This is not very different than Apple using their position to 'encourage' the labels from not taking part in Amazon's promotions. The reports are that Apple uses it's dominance in online music sales to encourage labels not to take part in Amazon's promotions. The reported threat would be Apple would refuse to provide marketing support through iTunes for those songs that were offered in Amazon's promotions. Sound familiar? Play ball with us, do not do freely do business with a competitor or you will suffer consequences.
As far as defining a monopoly, and whether Apple's dominance in online music is enough to be legally defined as a monopoly, it is clear that they certainly could be. A market monopoly doesn't have to have 100% of the market or even very close to 100%. It simply needs enough dominance to have significant influence on others access that market. If they was 'Steve's Corner Record Store' then a threat to pull marketing support if labels promoted with Amazon wouldn't be a threat. Only Apple's dominance makes it a threat.
The big difference is that MS was using their dominance (monopoly) in one market to gain dominance in another. Which is more often than not, done using illegal means. There is nothing wrong with using one's dominance in a market to gain or maintain that dominance in that same market. Which in most cases can be done without breaking any laws.
And let's not gloss over the fact that MS sabotage Netscape by encourging their developers to code using MS Java on their web pages and not making any changes in those codes available to Netscape, in a timely matter. So Netscape was always "buggy" when consumers used it.
BestBuy is the biggest electronic retailer and can "encourage" the companies they do business with all they want in order to get a better deal than Target. Target can strike exclusive deals so that certain products are only available at Target and not at WalMart. WalMart can chose not to sell a company "R" rated games but all of their "M" and "PG" games. Or all "XXX" rated movies. It doesn't matter that they are the biggest DVD and gaming software retailer.
All Apple did was to "inform" the Labels that if they let Amazon have certain music before Apple iTunes, then Apple would not feature or promote that music in their iTunes store. That's the same as WalMart not giving a certain product special shelf space or in store promotion if that product was first made available to Target. In no way did Apple threaten to stop selling all of the labels music or even the music that was made availble at Amazon first, if the label let Amazon have it first. Apple just wasn't going to promote or feature the music, Amazon got first, in their iTunes store.
If the labels thinks that they can make more money letting Amazon sell their music earlier than Apple on iTunes, nothing is stopping them from doing this. And in the end, their choice will be based on the way that makes more money.
The labels were the ones that gave Steve Jobs the key to the Kingdom. And it's now going to cost them if they want it back.
Yeah -- pick on the successful people. That's the way to have a successful country.
I know...The DOJ is so messed up! I really want to see any consumer protection outcome from their past actions. I am sure there might be some indirect results, but even those that I can't seem to recall. Waste of taxpayers money!
so lets let the most screwed up organization "US Government" tell the most successful corporation in America today how to operate. Wow are we messed up.
Eric Holder should investigate the governments subsidies to General Motors, the AIG dominance in the insurance industry, the SEC's ignoring of Bernie Madoff, but instead they refuse to acknowledge that Radical Islam is a problem and instead go after Apple Computer. I can buy an iPad device from several makers, and soon more. I can buy music from Amazon, Apple, etc. The current Justice Department is made up of bunch of Socialists and Communists.
I don't agree it's flawed logic. It's a risk they took, sure, but the logic is perfect in capitalism, and they had how many years of no change to their business practices, realising full revenue as a result? And, Netscape lost.
I wouldn't ever imagine a company admitting guilt, ever, especially up front. Capitalism demands they deny, obfuscate and continue on their current path. Though they didn't "win" in the end, I think they got off without much penalty at all.
I understand your argument, and I made it myself for the years the case slowly an agonizingly wended its way through the courts. It seemed to me then that Microsoft was benefitting from the delay, and in a way, they certainly did. But I find myself modifying that view when I look at the larger outcomes of the case, which I think have had a much longer term negative effect on the company. They invested so much of their corporate strategy on blatantly illegal practices, that even today they are finding it difficult to formulate an effective alternative. So even discounting for the Findings of Fact (which were huge and costly), Microsoft's inability to accept change has indeed hurt them.
When faced with these issues, companies don't need to "admit guilt," they simply need to agree to changes in their business practices, and move on. This happens all the time. You don't hear much about this because the complaints and investigations don't result in lengthy antitrust cases. They are rapidly and quietly resolved. I'd like to think that if the DoJ has questions about Apple's business practices, that the company won't be as pigheaded as Microsoft.
Replace Apple with Microsoft and 'cruddy Flex apps' with Netscape, and you might get some insight into their thinking...
That is an interesting pint you make. On the surface it sounds pretty compelling. Once you look more closely at it, however, some important differences crop up.
The big thing is motivation. MS had its own product IE that was competing with Netscape. Now both were free so what was the issue? The issue was who was to control
1- the portal to the internet, and
2- access to the internet.
#1 was a monetary issue since access portals are monetized via advertising revenue.
#2 Was also very important. By making IE the default browser on 95% of computers world wide, MS was able to marginalize competitive Operating Systems (such as Macs and Unix of all flavors). By co-opting internet standards such as Javascript, HTML etc, they forced developers to program for their own, truly monopolistic platform - thus raising the "cost" of purchasing a competing computer. Believe me, in those days there were many many web sites that just would not work on a Mac, even with IE - not to mention that changes to IE would come out many months later on Mac than on PCs.
Essentially, IE vs Netscape was a battle for big $$ and market dominance.
---
So how about Apple vs Flash?
Personally, I have trouble seeing a serious financial interest here. There are two parts to Flash issue - no Flash Player on iPhone OS, and not allowing Flash derivative programs on the platform.
It is hard to see how Apple is making money from refusing to allow Flash players. Flash players play content off the internet. Apple does not have a competing system of its own. It is merely pushing for adoption of Open standards. The reasons are two: First, quality (tons have been written so I will not say more), and second is that Apple does not want to be dependent on a third party for any key aspect of the user experience on its platform. (It was badly burned by the IE and MS Office experiences.) Is Adobe willing to make the player open source so that anyone can write a player app? Are they willing to make the Flash language open source so that the internet community as a whole can help refine it and develop programming environments for it? NO. They want to maintain their monopoly on the technology. This is fine - they bought the company who created it - but then Apple has a perfect right to cut it off if it damages their product.
As for the use of Flash development system to create iPhone products: Apple believes these are crappy. That is why they disallow them. Why? Do they make a great deal of money from a competing system? I don't think so. You can buy a used Mac Mini for $400 with the SDK built in. Then it costs a whopping $99 to be join their developers group. I hardly see this as a huge revenue stream.
---
Actually, Apple is loosing money in this so-called "Flash war." One of the biggest excuses for not wanting to buy an iPhone or iPad is that it will not play flash.
So - I think there is really a huge difference between the two cases.
Comments
Hey, you lazy anti-government wannabees ... this is called an investigation into illegal activities. That is the job of the Fed. Look at the Constitution occasionally. Even Wall Street and Mom and Pop businesses need to know that possible improprieties will be checked out.
If the Feds overreach and play god, then sure, complain to high heaven, but being knee-jerk reactionaries carrying Glen Beck's water is pretty stupid.
Sincerely
Thomas Jefferson
As a Stumptown resident -- the mecca for recipients of government handouts, with one of the highest unemployment rates among major US cities -- it is not surprising that you espouse such a view.
Who is Glen Beck?
Microsoft adamantly refused to acknowledge that any of its behavior was illegal and make any changes. It's a situation they could easily have avoided. They chose to go head-to-head with the government, and lost -- just as everyone who was paying attention at the time knew they would. Microsoft's approach was supremely arrogant and amazingly stupid.
Really? I don't see it that way at all. I see it as a perfectly logical and intelligent (in a capitalist society) way of dealing with the situation. They fought, they delayed any decisions for 10 years. Along the way, did they suffer any business while this went on, mostly unbeknownst to the ignorant public? Hell no.
The best thing to do in this sort of situation is claim innocence and delay, delay, delay. That way they delay paying. That is a good thing for capitalist entities. They pay the lawyers regardless, and their objective was to keep it going, keep the feds off their backs and delay any decision.
It's the decision that is the stupidest. The decision should have been swift and it should have followed the AT&T breakup (2 companies - OS and Apps). Then the consumer and the industry would be benefitting from government intervention.
Of course, they need to increase their visibility, nothing worse for this administration than going 5 seconds without the complete attention of the media. And they need the money, beaurocratic surges with rainbow lollipop names aren't cheap. They're just licking their chops over anything Internet as a potential tax revenue stream. They'd love to have bigger cut of those iTunes sales, they're already taxing everything else to death.
And of course nothing is more important than going after the 30% share of the music industry sales that Apple commands. If the DOJ spent 5 minutes thinking this one through, 2 other facts would have torpedoed this stupid idea:
-iTunes has been the only growth sector of the music biz for almost a decade, the rest has been in sharp decline.
-You can load any other retailer's music into your Apple products.
Of course what would torpedo the torpedoing of the investigation would be facts like:
-iTunes has ~70% of online music sales. You know, the market in question.
-The fact that you can load music from other retails onto Apple devices says little about Apple applying unfair pressure to help ensure the iTunes music store is that source. Apple 'allowing' music from other sources is simply survival. The iPod and iTunes store would have been dead in the water if iPods could only play Fairplay AAC. People would have bought alternatives if they couldn't play their pirated MP3s.
-Online music sales, led primarily by iTunes, has been the only sector of growth for the music biz for most of the decade. That doesn't mean other players in the market should be suffocated.
Thousands of songs, TV shows and movies continue to gush from a gaping hole in the ocean floor threatening to entertain thousands of miles of worth of pristine consumer electronic habits. This could be the worst multimedia spill in the world's history.
Who is at fault for this disaster?
The DOJ will investigate and bring them to justice!!!
As most have said, Apple does not have a monopoly in anything, be it smartphones, tablets (there are other tablets, believe it or not), music players, or computers. Apple does have a fair amount of power and influence in the consumer electronics field, but I have a feeling most of this is a backlash of the Flash War, in which Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and others have an interest.
Really? I don't see it that way at all. I see it as a perfectly logical and intelligent (in a capitalist society) way of dealing with the situation. They fought, they delayed any decisions for 10 years. Along the way, did they suffer any business while this went on, mostly unbeknownst to the ignorant public? Hell no.
The best thing to do in this sort of situation is claim innocence and delay, delay, delay. That way they delay paying. That is a good thing for capitalist entities. They pay the lawyers regardless, and their objective was to keep it going, keep the feds off their backs and delay any decision.
It's the decision that is the stupidest. The decision should have been swift and it should have followed the AT&T breakup (2 companies - OS and Apps). Then the consumer and the industry would be benefitting from government intervention.
It followed a certain sort of logic of the kind you describe, but I think in the end, flawed logic. The most significant outcome of the case was Judge Jackson's Findings of Fact, which were used to power several huge private antitrust settlements, which cost the company billions. Then the EU got in the act. In retrospect, I think it's clear that Microsoft would have done themselves a big favor had they headed off this outcome by making relatively small changes in the way they did business. Few companies are so bull-headed in dealing with the government as Microsoft was.
Sure, it would have been better had the government acted more swiftly (ideally, with the original FTC complaint in 1992) but after that, the real delay was in the courts, which is impossible to do much about, especially given the complications in this case -- massive amounts of evidence, depositions, the need to appoint Special Masters, and that sort of thing.
I was never a big fan of the breakup plan. This would still have allowed the "OS Division" of Microsoft to leverage Windows, which was the cornerstone issue.
According to Steve Jobs' letter, Apple asked Adobe for a demo of a working version of Flash on iPhone OS, and nothing...
So, then they go ahead without Flash, and become the bad guys. Who are the proprietary format folks in this? The HTML5 promotors or the Flash promotors????
That's exactly the Flash issue in a nutshell. Adobe never delivered a product.
Apple should have simply said "Adobe has never delivered a version of Flash which works on the iPhone" and left it at that.
How is what apple is doing with their devices any different with what Sony does with the PS3, Microsoft does with is XBox, or Nintendo does with it's Wii. They are all closed ecosystems where the developer dictates what's available on the system. They also dictate what people can write and distribute on their systems. It's the same thing. They are all closed operating systems that choose what they want to support and don't want to support. An ipad, iPhone, etc are not computers. They are closed proptietary devices that a much more limited in scope as are traditional gaming systems
QFT.
If it can be found that Apple has enough power in a definable market to interfere with free competition, and it can be found that they've abused that power, then they might have a problem with the DoJ. Presumably the DoJ is looking at some complaints from competitors, and before anyone gripes about how the law is being used to "punish" Apple for being "successful," understand that antitrust laws are rarely put into play when nobody has complained. These laws are entirely about competition.
OK. So what's the problem? If as people are arguing, Apple's not offering Flash on the iPhone is a bad thing, it helps the competition. If Apple's control of the development tools is a mistake, the competition will benefit. So why are people complaining? Apple's actions are going to HELP the competition if all the whiners are correct.
This is not very different than Apple using their position to 'encourage' the labels from not taking part in Amazon's promotions..
Nonsense. The law has always allowed for things like only offering advertising allowances if the partner complies with your rules. As long as you're not a monopoly and demanding better terms than anyone else, it's perfectly legal.
You mean dominant force.
It followed a certain sort of logic of the kind you describe, but I think in the end, flawed logic.
I don't agree it's flawed logic. It's a risk they took, sure, but the logic is perfect in capitalism, and they had how many years of no change to their business practices, realising full revenue as a result? And, Netscape lost.
I wouldn't ever imagine a company admitting guilt, ever, especially up front. Capitalism demands they deny, obfuscate and continue on their current path. Though they didn't "win" in the end, I think they got off without much penalty at all.
My opinion is that I believe any company that resorts to unsavoury business practices to put a competitor out of business, should itself be shut down. No compromise and no flexibility here. Only then might you see these greedy bastardes acting in a way that I would consider to be heading in the direction of integrity (they will never get there in capitalism, but it'd be nice if they were at least headed in the direction of integrity).
I realise that anti-competitive practices are ultimately not good for the industry and consumers. However, I just don't get any of the issues the DoJ is exploring:
1. So what if Apple doesn't want to allow cruddy Flex apps on its products. Its Apple's platform, why shouldn't they do what they believe is better for their product and their business?
2. How can Apple be the focus of the DoJ for using its muscle against Amazon .. who were themselves using their muscle to get exclusive music deals. This is just business, isn't it? The music companies are free to make the most compelling commercial decisions.
3. Why shouldn't companies that invest heavily in their talent pools .. recruiting, developing, and sharing secrets ... contractually inhibit poaching by competitors? The idea of a cool down period of several months, and / or financial burdens, seems entirely reasonable to me.
So Really I don't get it. It would seem that the US Government want to burden and break the most successful US companies. They are insane.
It really comes down to Apple having a big wad of cash and politicians needing some of that for their campaigns. Microsoft didn't understand that connection in the 90s but now they do. Apple needs to open up their wallets a bit to deflect the DoJ. Obama will pull them in when Apple starts fanning cash at him.
Actually, that isn't really accurate. MS used their dominance of the PC market to force OEMs to not promote Netscape. They 'encouraged' the OEMs to only place the IE icon on the desktop and to avoid placing the Netscape icon there. They further 'encouraged' some not to even install Netscape. Incentives, like financial subsidies for marketing, were generally reported, and the threat was that MS would pull these marketing dollars. There were also claims of MS threatening some OEMs with losing their Windows license for not playing ball.
This is not very different than Apple using their position to 'encourage' the labels from not taking part in Amazon's promotions. The reports are that Apple uses it's dominance in online music sales to encourage labels not to take part in Amazon's promotions. The reported threat would be Apple would refuse to provide marketing support through iTunes for those songs that were offered in Amazon's promotions. Sound familiar? Play ball with us, do not do freely do business with a competitor or you will suffer consequences.
As far as defining a monopoly, and whether Apple's dominance in online music is enough to be legally defined as a monopoly, it is clear that they certainly could be. A market monopoly doesn't have to have 100% of the market or even very close to 100%. It simply needs enough dominance to have significant influence on others access that market. If they was 'Steve's Corner Record Store' then a threat to pull marketing support if labels promoted with Amazon wouldn't be a threat. Only Apple's dominance makes it a threat.
The big difference is that MS was using their dominance (monopoly) in one market to gain dominance in another. Which is more often than not, done using illegal means. There is nothing wrong with using one's dominance in a market to gain or maintain that dominance in that same market. Which in most cases can be done without breaking any laws.
And let's not gloss over the fact that MS sabotage Netscape by encourging their developers to code using MS Java on their web pages and not making any changes in those codes available to Netscape, in a timely matter. So Netscape was always "buggy" when consumers used it.
BestBuy is the biggest electronic retailer and can "encourage" the companies they do business with all they want in order to get a better deal than Target. Target can strike exclusive deals so that certain products are only available at Target and not at WalMart. WalMart can chose not to sell a company "R" rated games but all of their "M" and "PG" games. Or all "XXX" rated movies. It doesn't matter that they are the biggest DVD and gaming software retailer.
All Apple did was to "inform" the Labels that if they let Amazon have certain music before Apple iTunes, then Apple would not feature or promote that music in their iTunes store. That's the same as WalMart not giving a certain product special shelf space or in store promotion if that product was first made available to Target. In no way did Apple threaten to stop selling all of the labels music or even the music that was made availble at Amazon first, if the label let Amazon have it first. Apple just wasn't going to promote or feature the music, Amazon got first, in their iTunes store.
If the labels thinks that they can make more money letting Amazon sell their music earlier than Apple on iTunes, nothing is stopping them from doing this. And in the end, their choice will be based on the way that makes more money.
The labels were the ones that gave Steve Jobs the key to the Kingdom. And it's now going to cost them if they want it back.
Its just an investigation, and nothing will come out of it.
This is simply the Post doing what it does best. Sensationalizing trivial matters, and desensationalizing important stuff.
Yeah -- pick on the successful people. That's the way to have a successful country.
I know...The DOJ is so messed up! I really want to see any consumer protection outcome from their past actions. I am sure there might be some indirect results, but even those that I can't seem to recall. Waste of taxpayers money!
I don't agree it's flawed logic. It's a risk they took, sure, but the logic is perfect in capitalism, and they had how many years of no change to their business practices, realising full revenue as a result? And, Netscape lost.
I wouldn't ever imagine a company admitting guilt, ever, especially up front. Capitalism demands they deny, obfuscate and continue on their current path. Though they didn't "win" in the end, I think they got off without much penalty at all.
I understand your argument, and I made it myself for the years the case slowly an agonizingly wended its way through the courts. It seemed to me then that Microsoft was benefitting from the delay, and in a way, they certainly did. But I find myself modifying that view when I look at the larger outcomes of the case, which I think have had a much longer term negative effect on the company. They invested so much of their corporate strategy on blatantly illegal practices, that even today they are finding it difficult to formulate an effective alternative. So even discounting for the Findings of Fact (which were huge and costly), Microsoft's inability to accept change has indeed hurt them.
When faced with these issues, companies don't need to "admit guilt," they simply need to agree to changes in their business practices, and move on. This happens all the time. You don't hear much about this because the complaints and investigations don't result in lengthy antitrust cases. They are rapidly and quietly resolved. I'd like to think that if the DoJ has questions about Apple's business practices, that the company won't be as pigheaded as Microsoft.
Replace Apple with Microsoft and 'cruddy Flex apps' with Netscape, and you might get some insight into their thinking...
That is an interesting pint you make. On the surface it sounds pretty compelling. Once you look more closely at it, however, some important differences crop up.
The big thing is motivation. MS had its own product IE that was competing with Netscape. Now both were free so what was the issue? The issue was who was to control
1- the portal to the internet, and
2- access to the internet.
#1 was a monetary issue since access portals are monetized via advertising revenue.
#2 Was also very important. By making IE the default browser on 95% of computers world wide, MS was able to marginalize competitive Operating Systems (such as Macs and Unix of all flavors). By co-opting internet standards such as Javascript, HTML etc, they forced developers to program for their own, truly monopolistic platform - thus raising the "cost" of purchasing a competing computer. Believe me, in those days there were many many web sites that just would not work on a Mac, even with IE - not to mention that changes to IE would come out many months later on Mac than on PCs.
Essentially, IE vs Netscape was a battle for big $$ and market dominance.
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So how about Apple vs Flash?
Personally, I have trouble seeing a serious financial interest here. There are two parts to Flash issue - no Flash Player on iPhone OS, and not allowing Flash derivative programs on the platform.
It is hard to see how Apple is making money from refusing to allow Flash players. Flash players play content off the internet. Apple does not have a competing system of its own. It is merely pushing for adoption of Open standards. The reasons are two: First, quality (tons have been written so I will not say more), and second is that Apple does not want to be dependent on a third party for any key aspect of the user experience on its platform. (It was badly burned by the IE and MS Office experiences.) Is Adobe willing to make the player open source so that anyone can write a player app? Are they willing to make the Flash language open source so that the internet community as a whole can help refine it and develop programming environments for it? NO. They want to maintain their monopoly on the technology. This is fine - they bought the company who created it - but then Apple has a perfect right to cut it off if it damages their product.
As for the use of Flash development system to create iPhone products: Apple believes these are crappy. That is why they disallow them. Why? Do they make a great deal of money from a competing system? I don't think so. You can buy a used Mac Mini for $400 with the SDK built in. Then it costs a whopping $99 to be join their developers group. I hardly see this as a huge revenue stream.
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Actually, Apple is loosing money in this so-called "Flash war." One of the biggest excuses for not wanting to buy an iPhone or iPad is that it will not play flash.
So - I think there is really a huge difference between the two cases.
IMHO
Yeah -- pick on the successful people. That's the way to have a successful country.
Al Capone was very successful.
Bernie Madoff was very successful.
BP was very successful.
Roger Clemens was very successful.
Should we not pick on them?
Maybe you need to redefine the meaning of "success." Last time I looked, it didn't include cheating.
ya, probably right, gotta waste some more taxpayer dollars... jeesh i can't wait until we kick these bums out.
jeesh, you are ignorant.