Microsoft offered a deal whereby hardware manufacturers would get large discounts on purchases of MS-DOS if they signed an agreement which stated they'd pay a royalty fee for every computer they sold whether it had MS-DOS installed or not.
The hardware manufacturers weren't forced into doing anything. It was their choice to sign and go with Microsoft's products over alternatives like Caldera's DR-DOS.
Microsoft's deal merely said "Stick with MS-DOS and you'll get a big fat discount". I find nothing abhorrent in that. That's business.</strong><hr></blockquote>
MS said either you buy separate licensing at a ridiculously high price(done on purpose) or you just use DOS and get it REAL CHEAP! What one wouldn't OEMs choose? Not saying that it isn't "business" nor did I say it was bad. I just claimed that is how MS got the Monopoly it has now.
<strong>Netscape isn't on the OSX CD, whose fault is that? Microsoft's evil business dealings again?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
probably .. who knows.
<strong> [quote]
You alluded to some evil plan of MS's to kill QT but it's still around.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's not alluding.. it was TRUE.. it was in the TRIAL.. MS wanted them to "knife the baby" as they put it. They wanted Apple to only provide multimedia tools.. not provide apps that replayed the multimedia. That is one thing Apple said ABSOLUTELY not. Cause after all they was all ready the default in web multimedia. Why should they give that up?
<strong> [quote]
I said nothing of Real's dominance over one or the other. Is QT not still around? Are Windowsmedia and Real not competitive? </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes but MS TRIED it's hardest to get rid of QT, and that is a fact.
<strong> [quote]
Here's my point:
There is nothing wrong with a company pushing their own money makers.
The very thing you want to crucify Microsoft for is what Apple and all other corporations do daily.</strong><hr></blockquote>
[quote]<strong>probably .. who knows.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What Netscape product was there to put on the CD that would work with OSX?
You think too much of the Macintosh market, what use is using borderline-illegal tactics to get a browser monopoly on a platform you do not control?
[quote]<strong>That is one thing Apple said ABSOLUTELY not. Cause after all they was all ready the default in web multimedia. Why should they give that up?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes. . . you alluded to the plan. Get a dictionary and look up the world "allusion".
I'll save you the trouble:
: to make indirect reference; broadly : REFER
I never questioned the existence of the plan or stated that Apple should have complied.
My only assertion was that, despite some plan of MS's, QuickTime is still around.
[quote]<strong>Yes but MS TRIED it's hardest to get rid of QT, and that is a fact.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What company doesn't want to "get rid of" a competing product?
[quote]<strong>Oh so that justifies it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Justifies what?
Their actions "against" Netscape? Absolutely.
Their actions "against" Apple? Absolutely.
Their "unfair" business agreements (to which other companies agree)? Absolutely.
Business is business, don't come crying to me when you sign a deal with the devil.
<strong>MS said either you buy separate licensing at a ridiculously high price(done on purpose) or you just use DOS and get it REAL CHEAP! What one wouldn't OEMs choose? Not saying that it isn't "business" nor did I say it was bad. I just claimed that is how MS got the Monopoly it has now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know, I'm not arguing - I'm discussing.
I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.
[quote]I know this is the law, but I don't agree with it at all. If a company finds itself in a position of being a monopoly, I'm fine with that.<hr></blockquote>
It doesn't. Antitrust law is perfectly OK with monopolies. It applies when a monopoly becomes abusive. What does "abusive" mean? It means that they start taking advantage of the fact that they have no competition. As long as a monopoly behaves as if they were competing in an open market, they will generally be left alone.
[quote]I'd be so angry if, when a company I owned reached a certain level of market share, the government then started imposing new legislation upon me that didn't apply to my competitors.<hr></blockquote>
If you're a monopoly, you don't have competitors.
The principle behind antitrust law recognizes that when one party has too much raw power, any interaction between them is inherently unfair, and any tactics they use have to be adjusted for size. If some drunk attacks a child, no-one would mind if the child fought back with all his might. If the same drunk attacked Mike Tyson, Mike would get in serious trouble for fighting back with all his might. But Microsoft isn't Mike Tyson to its "competitors" (i.e. anyone else in the software industry). It's more like Godzilla.
Some of the opposition certainly is less than idealist. I can't help but snicker every time Scott McNealy accuses MS of being monopolistic. But business and politics make strange bedfellows, and the basic point of the antitrust case rings true. Even at the height of the dot com enthusiasm, venture capitalists would refuse to fund any venture whose proposal looked too good because they knew what would happen if it caught Microsoft's eye. The mere presence of such an outsized, hyperaggressive company stifled the industry even at its most absurdly optimistic.
[quote]I have absolutely no objections to Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, or integrating the two in any way it sees fit.<hr></blockquote>
If it's part of a larger pattern of misconduct, I do. Taken in and of itself, I still think what they did is reprehensible. Commingling of code is stupid. MS knows that full well. They've published books in their Developer Network saying as much, and pushed COM and DCOM for that very reason. They are consciously and deliberately compromising the stability, maintainability and integrity of their code... for what? That's not illegal, but they can get away with it because they have no competitors.
[quote]Unfortunately for Microsoft, it agreed a deal with the government back in 1995 that set limits on what it could do in making its operating systems available to hardware manufacturers, and it's this agreement that the goverment has used to attack Microsoft at the bequest of its competitors.<hr></blockquote>
Because Microsoft ignored the consent agreement completely.
You forget: MS holds the whole process in such utter comtempt that they turned a free-market judge who was deeply skeptical of antitrust law or government enforcement - Jackson - into a bitter foe who established beyond any reasonable doubt and beyond any hope of appeal that they have been an abusive monopoly (not just a monopoly) and wholly contemptuous of the law. What the Bush Administration has taught them is that they were right to be. MS is now completely above the law unless something drastic happens.
[quote]Netscape had a belief that its software could be a platform in itself, and was somewhat naive in making that assumption.<hr></blockquote>
Only because Microsoft agreed with them.
(And because they tried implementing their own platform rather than just making a Web client, for which they have earned my eternal dislike.)
[quote]If competitors want to make inroads into Microsoft's market share, then they need to provide software that bests Microsoft's own. If this means they have to create a whole new operating system before they even start creating a rival to Office, then so be it.<hr></blockquote>
Huh?
There is far better software out there than Microsoft's own (not Netscape, though). It doesn't matter. It never has. As long as Microsoft continues to do what they have been doing, it never will.
I could (hypothetically )write an office suite tomorrow that kicked Office all the way to kingdom come and back, and the first thing any reviewer would ask is, "is it compatible with Office?" If not, I'd be lucky to get a Nisus-like cult following no matter what. You're assuming that Office (and Explorer, and Windows) exists in a competitive landscape. It doesn't. That's the problem. Better OS's and better platforms and better applications have been sidelined, driven under, and otherwise made irrelevant for years.
[quote]I understand Microsoft was found guilty of "abusing its monopoly powers", but I don't believe that those restrictions should have been placed on Microsoft in the first place.<hr></blockquote>
The restrictions were placed on Microsoft because it was abusing its monopoly power, not just because it was a monopoly. The DoJ only brought a suit (which they knew would be a long and costly endeavor) when MS thumbed its nose at the agreement.
[quote]If managing to gain a 90% market share, then using that position to increase share in other markets is "Un-American", then I'm ashamed to hold an American passport.<hr></blockquote>
If you don't like market economies, fine. Move to Europe. The sort of capitalism you seem to embrace gets along famously with European socialism.
<strong>I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.</strong><hr></blockquote>Well, every judge who has looked at it says they acted illegally. Even the 7-member appeals court who overturned the break-up remedy unanimously said the findings of fact were correct.
BTW, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/microsoftorder.pdf"; target="_blank">here's a .pdf file of that ruling.</a> 125 pages, but an interesting read. It's the one from this past June where they criticized Jackson's behavior and overturned the break-up remedy. It clearly spells out where they engaged in illegal behavior.
quote:For one thing, ActiveX controls can extend IE for Windows.
Could Microsoft, theoretically, port ActiveX to MacOSX(9,whatever), or would it have to be something Apple took care of.<hr></blockquote>
MS could port ActiveX to OS X (Not sure about OS 9). Apple could too, but I doubt they'd even try without MS' permission. Either way, it would be a very large effort, and it wouldn't solve the problem 100% because ActiveX controls are still compiled for Windows/x86.
[quote]I still see no advantage over "letting" Netscape exist. (Netscape is allowed all the market share it wants, it's free for God's sake. It just sucked/s)<hr></blockquote>
What do you mean? I'm not arguing that a subpar company should be propped up. I'm arguing that it should be allowed to fail on its own merits rather than being driven out unfairly.
[quote]quote: Tying it into the OS marries it to the OS, which is what they wanted. Otherwise, the Web would have become (ideally!) a platform- agnostic platform that they couldn't buy or control.
You say this as if the web is something MS owns and controls.<hr></blockquote>
It's something that they want to control. It's not in their interest to have a platform-agnostic application environment - whether the Web or XML or Java - that they don't control. It moots their OS dominance. If the applications you use can run just as well on MacOS, or Linux, or Solaris, why buy Windows?
Also, IE is much, much more that a web browser at this point. It can be extended with ActiveX (platform dependent). It can be skinned and turned into an application interface (browser and platform dependent). And so forth. The Web, as standardized by the W3C, is just the jumping-off point for MS.
[quote]quote: If Windows had, say, a 30% market share, would it have made sense for MS to bundle IE3 instead of a superior (or more popular) browser?
Yes, if they planned on the integration between the browser (that they control) with their Operating System.<hr></blockquote>
It was established during the trial, however, that they did it to kill Netscape. The integration strategy was done as an alibi to make it impossible to remove IE by tying it down to the OS - in a really poor way. There are plenty of ways that MS could have used to integrate the Web and ship their engine standard, but also make it a (set of) replaceable component(s) that used published APIs.
[quote]It's not wise to depend on another company to take care of a vital part of your operations for you.<hr></blockquote>
Actually, it's a commonplace: Hardware drivers are one obvious example. OS vendors license technology and code from third parties all the time.
<strong>It doesn't. Antitrust law is perfectly OK with monopolies. It applies when a monopoly becomes abusive. What does "abusive" mean? It means that they start taking advantage of the fact that they have no competition. As long as a monopoly behaves as if they were competing in an open market, they will generally be left alone.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But this is a problem of definition. Microsoft does have competition. There are countless developers whose products compete with Microsoft's. The reason Microsoft is considered a monopoly is because that competition is ineffectual, not because it doesn't exist.
As for anti-trust laws being imposed to prevent monopolies abusing their position - what's the point in striving to gain as much of a market as is possible if you are then punished for holding that position? And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.
Is it possible to have a capitalist economy and yet punish your financial successes?
[quote]<strong>If you're a monopoly, you don't have competitors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
See above. You have companies competing for a slice of the same market, it's just they're ineffectual. A definition problem.
[quote]<strong>The principle behind antitrust law recognizes that when one party has too much raw power, any interaction between them is inherently unfair, and any tactics they use have to be adjusted for size. If some drunk attacks a child, no-one would mind if the child fought back with all his might. If the same drunk attacked Mike Tyson, Mike would get in serious trouble for fighting back with all his might. But Microsoft isn't Mike Tyson to its "competitors" (i.e. anyone else in the software industry). It's more like Godzilla.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This doesn't work. Is Microsoft the drunk or the child/Mike Tyson? Either way, places are reversed in the second example.
[quote]<strong>Some of the opposition certainly is less than idealist. I can't help but snicker every time Scott McNealy accuses MS of being monopolistic. But business and politics make strange bedfellows, and the basic point of the antitrust case rings true. Even at the height of the dot com enthusiasm, venture capitalists would refuse to fund any venture whose proposal looked too good because they knew what would happen if it caught Microsoft's eye. The mere presence of such an outsized, hyperaggressive company stifled the industry even at its most absurdly optimistic.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is what aggravates me the most. No matter what your political or economic view, the validity of the action by Sun and Netscape is diminished because it's being taken off the battlefield.
[quote]<strong>If it's part of a larger pattern of misconduct, I do. Taken in and of itself, I still think what they did is reprehensible. Commingling of code is stupid. MS knows that full well. They've published books in their Developer Network saying as much, and pushed COM and DCOM for that very reason. They are consciously and deliberately compromising the stability, maintainability and integrity of their code... for what? That's not illegal, but they can get away with it because they have no competitors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, it is stupid, but I still wouldn't consider it illegal. And there is no larger pattern of misconduct in this anti-trust case. The whole case hinges on Microsoft breaking the 1995 agreement, then trying to get round it by including IE as part of the system software. If you don't believe that the agreement should have been forced on them in the first place, as I do, then the case has no weight.
Microsoft managed to get a huge market share very quickly despite having what most people considered a mediocre product. Only after its incredible success is it considered to have acted badly. And this is why I feel Microsoft is being treated unreasonably, and why I feel the anti-trust laws and monopoly controls are grossly unfair.
Instead of punishing Microsoft for its success in the face of mediocrity, its competitors should have acted earlier. Despite the work done at Xerox since 1973, and Apple's "borrowing" of these technologies and subsequent release of the Macintosh in 1984, Microsoft was the only company to have a GUI-based OS available on the Intel platform in 1985. And it was awful. Where were Microsoft's competitors then? You can't punish Microsoft after the fact because you have a gross lack of technical expertise and business sense.
[quote]<strong>Because Microsoft ignored the consent agreement completely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've never argued this. But I still firmly believe it should never have been forced into such an agreement.
[quote]<strong>You forget: MS holds the whole process in such utter comtempt that they turned a free-market judge who was deeply skeptical of antitrust law or government enforcement - Jackson - into a bitter foe who established beyond any reasonable doubt and beyond any hope of appeal that they have been an abusive monopoly (not just a monopoly) and wholly contemptuous of the law. What the Bush Administration has taught them is that they were right to be. MS is now completely above the law unless something drastic happens.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Only because the law is an ass. And it's being made to look more of an ass because Microsoft is having to take measures to defend a case it should never have had to deal with in the first place. Don't mistake the actions of lawyers defending a client for misbehavior on the part of that client.
[quote]<strong>Only because Microsoft agreed with them.
(And because they tried implementing their own platform rather than just making a Web client, for which they have earned my eternal dislike.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Again, it's a very distasteful thing to do, but hardly a crime. And once again, why punish Microsoft for Netscape's ineptitude?
[quote]<strong>There is far better software out there than Microsoft's own (not Netscape, though). It doesn't matter. It never has. As long as Microsoft continues to do what they have been doing, it never will.
I could (hypothetically )write an office suite tomorrow that kicked Office all the way to kingdom come and back, and the first thing any reviewer would ask is, "is it compatible with Office?" If not, I'd be lucky to get a Nisus-like cult following no matter what. You're assuming that Office (and Explorer, and Windows) exists in a competitive landscape. It doesn't. That's the problem. Better OS's and better platforms and better applications have been sidelined, driven under, and otherwise made irrelevant for years.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This was my point. Microsoft's competitors can only be seen as bitter because they didn't get the foothold in the market many, many years ago. If a new company manages to create a stunning new OS that totally beats Windows in every regard, then introduces an Office-beating application, and yet not one customer is interested in changing over from Windows and Office, you can't blame Microsoft.
And as a developer, you can't take Microsoft to court because it's now too late for you to have any chance in the market. Ludicrous.
If someone did produce an amazing Office-beating app, perhaps then the government could take us consumers to court for being too stupid to buy it? It's not Microsoft's fault.
[quote]<strong>The restrictions were placed on Microsoft because it was abusing its monopoly power, not just because it was a monopoly. The DoJ only brought a suit (which they knew would be a long and costly endeavor) when MS thumbed its nose at the agreement.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Again, I haven't argued with this. Only that Microsoft should never have been put in that position in the first place.
[quote]<strong>If you don't like market economies, fine. Move to Europe. The sort of capitalism you seem to embrace gets along famously with European socialism.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hold both an American and United Kingdom passport.
But I'd argue that the capitilism I'm championing on behalf of Microsoft is exactly that upon which the United States economy and current politics are based.
The Bush administration would be absolutely defensive of Microsoft's actions if its "competitors" had been a foreign market.
[Oh, and the fact that Americans are apparently not proud of Microsoft's phenomenal success is a very socialistic trait. ]
<strong>Well, every judge who has looked at it says they acted illegally. Even the 7-member appeals court who overturned the break-up remedy unanimously said the findings of fact were correct.
BTW, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/microsoftorder.pdf"; target="_blank">here's a .pdf file of that ruling.</a> 125 pages, but an interesting read. It's the one from this past June where they criticized Jackson's behavior and overturned the break-up remedy. It clearly spells out where they engaged in illegal behavior.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My apologies, BRussell, I didn't make the point in this post I had in the previous that I was arguing Microsoft should never have been bound by the laws that made its actions illegal. The only legal argument that holds as far as I'm concerned is that they broke the 1995 agreement, and that should never have been imposed.
What Netscape product was there to put on the CD that would work with OSX?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Netscape does indeed have a browser that works with OS X does it not? Yes it does.
[quote]<strong>
You think too much of the Macintosh market, what use is using borderline-illegal tactics to get a browser monopoly on a platform you do not control?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Why did they Make Apple put IE as the default web browser in the Mac OS? or tell them if they didn't they'd pull Office. BTW this was just some of the proof that proved MS guilty of anti trust.
[quote]<strong>
I never questioned the existence of the plan or stated that Apple should have complied.
My only assertion was that, despite some plan of MS's, QuickTime is still around.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes QT is still around cause MS knew it was pushing it's luck on that one. But they tried anyhow.
<strong> [quote]
What company doesn't want to "get rid of" a competing product?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ah yes but lets get rid of a competitor by competing. Not Bullying. Sad that MS's products are not good enough to do it on their own merit.
<strong> [quote]
Justifies what?
Their actions "against" Netscape? Absolutely.
Their actions "against" Apple? Absolutely.
Their "unfair" business agreements (to which other companies agree)? Absolutely.
Business is business, don't come crying to me when you sign a deal with the devil.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh so that is why the government ruled that MS by doing these actions was using anti-competitive behavior to push other businesses out and gain market share. Something that isn't allowed in this country. Business is Business. Just as Illegal practices are Illegal.
I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.</strong><hr></blockquote>
YOU may not see it. But the courts did. They did indeed practice anti-competitive behavior. That is against the American laws therefore "un-American"
<strong>YOU may not see it. But the courts did. They did indeed practice anti-competitive behavior. That is against the American laws therefore "un-American"
More so than the GPL being "un-American"</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know, see my response to BRussell's post above. The law is an ass.
[quote]But this is a problem of definition. Microsoft does have competition. There are countless developers whose products compete with Microsoft's. The reason Microsoft is considered a monopoly is because that competition is ineffectual, not because it doesn't exist.<hr></blockquote>
What, in practical terms, is the difference? An ineffectual competition is not practically distinguishable from no competition at all. That's why farm league teams don't play the Yankees.
(By the way, MS would be roughly analogous to Tyson in my last example, except that Tyson isn't big enough. So I suggested Godzilla. The point was that if you're especially big or powerful you're expected to restrain yourself. I happen to know this first hand.)
[quote]As for anti-trust laws being imposed to prevent monopolies abusing their position - what's the point in striving to gain as much of a market as is possible if you are then punished for holding that position?<hr></blockquote>
Punished? I really don't like this rhetoric.
To understand antitrust law, you have to look at the big picture: One totally dominant company throwing its weight around is stifling and potentially dangerous. If you assume, as Americans traditionally have, that a free market is a good and healthy thing for the country, then anything that threatens a free market has to be contained regardless of how unfair it seems to whoever is threatening it. ("Free" here does not mean "totally unregulated," it means that there is a low barrier to entry.) Otherwise, there's no way to control it, and no way to offer alternatives to it. This is never a good situation for any human enterprise to be in. That's why the government - which is always in danger of falling afoul of the same problems - has so many restrictions and checks and balances applied to it. In fact, if half of those were applied to business, they'd scream bloody murder.
[quote]And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.<hr></blockquote>
I doubt it.
To my knowledge, nobody involved with the lawsuit has begrudged MS those companies who standardized on Windows - at least, not in the form of a legal complaint. In fact, I'm not sure how a monopolist ice cream company could get in trouble. Unlike hardware or software platforms, there are no markets built around ice cream brands - the same scoops and bowls and cones and spoons work with them all, etc. and you can't make your food incompatible with someone else's.
[quote]Is it possible to have a capitalist economy and yet punish your financial successes?<hr></blockquote>
Not Raj-style capitalism, but then America has, until very recently, held that at arm's length, and for good reason. We've paid more mind to Smith than to Ricardo.
It is not possible to have a market economy without putting some restraints on the occasional 800 pound gorilla, just as it is not possible to guarantee the freedom of every citizen without limiting the freedoms that some have to act (by virtue of wealth, charisma, etc.).
It is now bundled with WinXP the same way IE was with 98.
The courts ruled such bundling is illegal and provides no benefit to consumers.
Schools that choose all Windows hardware will be given free software incentives by MS that they will not provide to those that choose non Windows based hardware.
Such schools will take the "better" deal because they don't have the money.
Not only will those schools still be linked to MS's upgrade policies in the future costing them money but the students will not be shown alternatives to Windows.
Placing Windows PCs in these schools increases MS's market share - odd that we would punish a monopoly by increasing their only non-majority market share.
I'm glad we're narrowing down the discussion a little. It's so hard reading and responding in these forums.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>What, in practical terms, is the difference? An ineffectual competition is not practically distinguishable from no competition at all. That's why farm league teams don't play the Yankees.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And yet the government doesn't place restrictions on the Yankee's so that the farm league teams can compete.
[quote]<strong>(By the way, MS would be roughly analogous to Tyson in my last example, except that Tyson isn't big enough. So I suggested Godzilla. The point was that if you're especially big or powerful you're expected to restrain yourself. I happen to know this first hand.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
But you can't legally insist that Tyson shows restraint if he's attacked, then drag him through the courts if he doesn't adhere. You can only try him after the fact. So while he would be breaking the law if he brutalized that poor drunk, he would not be tried for breaking an agreement because he should not, and could not, have been placed under one in the first place. Of course he's expected to show restraint, but you can't bind him to it with a legal writ.
[quote]<strong>Punished? I really don't like this rhetoric.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Crime and punishment. By our law, Microsoft has been found guilty of a crime, and right now lawyers are thrashing out what the appropriate punishment should be. It's not rhetoric.
[quote]<strong>To understand antitrust law, you have to look at the big picture: One totally dominant company throwing its weight around is stifling and potentially dangerous. If you assume, as Americans traditionally have, that a free market is a good and healthy thing for the country, then anything that threatens a free market has to be contained regardless of how unfair it seems to whoever is threatening it. ("Free" here does not mean "totally unregulated," it means that there is a low barrier to entry.) Otherwise, there's no way to control it, and no way to offer alternatives to it. This is never a good situation for any human enterprise to be in. That's why the government - which is always in danger of falling afoul of the same problems - has so many restrictions and checks and balances applied to it. In fact, if half of those were applied to business, they'd scream bloody murder.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I understand anti-trust law, I just don't like it. Oddly, the US is one of very few countries who will allow anti-competitor (Competitor, not competitive) advertising. You can compare with, and even criticize, your opponents products. And yet if you attempted this in Europe, you'd be sued, and most likely convicted, for libel.
If Microsoft wants to impose conditions of sale on its customers, that's its own business. What's criminal is the weakness of the customers for accepting that situation. I don't blame Microsoft if they did threaten to stop Office for Mac if Apple refused to install IE as the default browser. It's Microsoft's product, they can do what the hell they like, and it's Microsoft that lose revenue if Apple refuses. Apple's weakness, not Microsoft's strength.
[quote]<strong>I doubt it.
To my knowledge, nobody involved with the lawsuit has begrudged MS those companies who standardized on Windows - at least, not in the form of a legal complaint. In fact, I'm not sure how a monopolist ice cream company could get in trouble.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Excuse my example, it's weak, but the point is still valid. Ignore the technicalities.
[quote]<strong>Unlike hardware or software platforms, there are no markets built around ice cream brands - the same scoops and bowls and cones and spoons work with them all, etc. and you can't make your food incompatible with someone else's.</strong><hr></blockquote>
By that definition, Windows is the market, not general software and hardware. But in the real world there is Linux and Mac OS and Solaris. There is SPARC and PowerPC and Intel. Microsoft is a brand in a market. Ice cream is a commodity and a market, with a whole bunch of manufacturers competing for a share.
[quote]<strong>Not Raj-style capitalism, but then America has, until very recently, held that at arm's length, and for good reason. We've paid more mind to Smith than to Ricardo.
It is not possible to have a market economy without putting some restraints on the occasional 800 pound gorilla, just as it is not possible to guarantee the freedom of every citizen without limiting the freedoms that some have to act (by virtue of wealth, charisma, etc.).</strong><hr></blockquote>
But then you should have laws that govern the whole community, and not introduce legal restrictions on certain individuals because of their position. If Mike Tyson beats a drunk who attacks him, he'll be tried by the same law as a 3-foot tall midget with weak knees who viciously assaults that same drunk. The only difference, if there is any, would be in the severeness of the punishment. You do not say to the midget that he'll only be tried for the assault once he reaches a certain height and weight.
And yet there are laws that will only be applied to companies which hold a certain control over a market that its competitors do not.
Microsoft *is* the market. They built the landscape we see today.
Belle is absolutely right, everyone else was either late to the party or they didn't bring enough to meet the cover charge.
All Office-like apps need to be compatible with Office for success because Microsoft was Johnny-on-the-spot giving their customers that functionality.
WordPerfect used to be huge, I remember. When did it drop off the map? Think about it.
Anti-trust laws are, IMO, in place to protect the consumer, not to protect other mega-million $ corporations. That is the injustice Microsoft is facing. It's not hurting the people but it gets crucified (in the media) like Standard Oil.
Sinewave:
[quote]<strong>Netscape does indeed have a browser that works with OS X does it not? Yes it does.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Refresh my memory:
When was 10.0 released?
When was an OSX compatible version of Netscape released?
And even now, is the latest version of Netscape even worthy of being distributed on a CD?
Is Microsoft keeping OmniWeb off OSX CDs?
Are they poisoning Steve's childrens' Cheerios every morning?
[quote]<strong>Why did they Make Apple put IE as the default web browser in the Mac OS? or tell them if they didn't they'd pull Office. BTW this was just some of the proof that proved MS guilty of anti trust.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I believe that was the $150 million investment thing.
And even if (perhaps they did, it doesn't matter) M$ said "Make IE default or we pull Office!" what is illegal about that?
[quote]<strong>Ah yes but lets get rid of a competitor by competing. Not Bullying. Sad that MS's products are not good enough to do it on their own merit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They did compete, they competed Netscape's ass right off the map.
Netscape stopped shipping with Windows, oh well, that's competition. Netscape wasn't including versions of IE with its enterprise software, boo hoo!
[quote]<strong>Oh so that is why the government ruled that MS by doing these actions was using anti-competitive behavior to push other businesses out and gain market share. Something that isn't allowed in this country. Business is Business. Just as Illegal practices are Illegal.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have you been reading Belle's posts? Perhaps you should.
<strong>Microsoft *is* the market. They built the landscape we see today.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The crazy thing is that the District Court practically stated this as being the case by dismissing Apple entirely when considering whether or not Microsoft had a monopoly.
When was an OSX compatible version of Netscape released?
And even now, is the latest version of Netscape even worthy of being distributed on a CD?
<hr></blockquote>[/qb]
It's not on 10.1 CD... and it's no better or worse than IE for OS X is.
[quote]<strong>
Is Microsoft keeping OmniWeb off OSX CDs?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Well the deal is STILL in effect. How come IE gets updated through the software update but not Omniweb?
[quote]<strong>
I believe that was the $150 million investment thing.
<hr></blockquote></strong>
The $150 million was a payoff to get Apple to drop all it's legal issues still pending with MS and to share Technologies with Apple. It was not to pay them to use IE.
[quote]<strong>
And even if (perhaps they did, it doesn't matter) M$ said "Make IE default or we pull Office!" what is illegal about that?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Is that not using one monopoly to gain another? Yes it is. Even the Supreme Courts said this.
<strong> [quote]
did compete, they competed Netscape's ass right off the map.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh bullshit grover. IE had most of the market share before it was worth a shit. It didn't compete at all.
<strong> [quote]
Netscape stopped shipping with Windows, oh well, that's competition. Netscape wasn't including versions of IE with its enterprise software, boo hoo!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Netscape's doesn't have a monopoly on software like it's enterprise software does it? No it doesn't.
<strong>The whole case hinges on Microsoft breaking the 1995 agreement, then trying to get round it by including IE as part of the system software. If you don't believe that the agreement should have been forced on them in the first place, as I do, then the case has no weight.</strong><hr></blockquote>It may be true that DoJ initially accused MS of violating their settlement agreement, but they were explicitly found innocent of that (actually by the same DC Court of Appeals). They have been found guilty of violating the Sherman Act, not their consent decree. That's on page 7 of that appeals court ruling linked above. [quote]And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.<hr></blockquote>That's not what they've been found guilty of, though. A better analogy is if a company sold most of the world's milk, and then started selling ice cream, too. Although their ice cream didn't taste as good, they put secret ingredients in their milk so their competitors' ice-cream would turn to mush. That way, they killed off the other ice-cream businesses, simply because they owned the milk, not because they were competitive at making ice cream.
About whether anti-trust laws discriminate against monopolies:
It's not illegal to have a gun, but it is illegal to shoot someone with it. Would you say that the laws against shooting people discriminate against people with guns?
[quote]<strong>It's not on 10.1 CD... and it's no better or worse than IE for OS X is.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Netscape 6.2 for OSX is just as good as IE 5.1 for OSX? Is that what you're saying?
[quote]<strong>Well the deal is STILL in effect. How come IE gets updated through the software update but not Omniweb?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Because IE is the default shipping browser. Because IE is just another 3rd party app from just another 3rd party app company. Microsoft is Apple's biggest ally and IE is the best browser for the Macintosh platform.
That's a stupid question.
[quote]<strong>The $150 million was a payoff to get Apple to drop all it's legal issues still pending with MS and to share Technologies with Apple. It was not to pay them to use IE.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple's legal issues with Microsoft were pure bullshit that they had no chance of winning. Apple was not a legal threat to Microsoft. The freaking DOJ can't hurt Microsoft.
The $150 million was a bailout and got Microsoft influence over Apple. IE being default could very well be a result.
[quote]<strong>Is that not using one monopoly to gain another? Yes it is. Even the Supreme Courts said this.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ooooh, a monopoly on the lucrative Mac browser market.
And leveraging an Office monopoly? You're reaching. Perhaps Apple shouldn't depend so much on a 3rd party company.
[quote]<strong>Oh bullshit grover. IE had most of the market share before it was worth a shit. It didn't compete at all. </strong><hr></blockquote>
If you'd take off the rose-colored glasses you'd see that Netscape sucked just as bad as IE used to.
[quote]<strong>Netscape's doesn't have a monopoly on software like it's enterprise software does it? No it doesn't.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What does that matter?
BRussell:
If you add that milk and ice cream are supposed to change constantly and that Microsoft essentially invented milk and ice cream then that analogy might hold a llittle water.
Comments
<strong>
Microsoft offered a deal whereby hardware manufacturers would get large discounts on purchases of MS-DOS if they signed an agreement which stated they'd pay a royalty fee for every computer they sold whether it had MS-DOS installed or not.
The hardware manufacturers weren't forced into doing anything. It was their choice to sign and go with Microsoft's products over alternatives like Caldera's DR-DOS.
Microsoft's deal merely said "Stick with MS-DOS and you'll get a big fat discount". I find nothing abhorrent in that. That's business.</strong><hr></blockquote>
MS said either you buy separate licensing at a ridiculously high price(done on purpose) or you just use DOS and get it REAL CHEAP! What one wouldn't OEMs choose? Not saying that it isn't "business" nor did I say it was bad. I just claimed that is how MS got the Monopoly it has now.
<strong>Netscape isn't on the OSX CD, whose fault is that? Microsoft's evil business dealings again?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
probably .. who knows.
<strong> [quote]
You alluded to some evil plan of MS's to kill QT but it's still around.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's not alluding.. it was TRUE.. it was in the TRIAL.. MS wanted them to "knife the baby" as they put it. They wanted Apple to only provide multimedia tools.. not provide apps that replayed the multimedia. That is one thing Apple said ABSOLUTELY not. Cause after all they was all ready the default in web multimedia. Why should they give that up?
<strong> [quote]
I said nothing of Real's dominance over one or the other. Is QT not still around? Are Windowsmedia and Real not competitive? </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes but MS TRIED it's hardest to get rid of QT, and that is a fact.
<strong> [quote]
Here's my point:
There is nothing wrong with a company pushing their own money makers.
The very thing you want to crucify Microsoft for is what Apple and all other corporations do daily.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh so that justifies it?
What Netscape product was there to put on the CD that would work with OSX?
You think too much of the Macintosh market, what use is using borderline-illegal tactics to get a browser monopoly on a platform you do not control?
[quote]<strong>That is one thing Apple said ABSOLUTELY not. Cause after all they was all ready the default in web multimedia. Why should they give that up?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes. . . you alluded to the plan. Get a dictionary and look up the world "allusion".
I'll save you the trouble:
: to make indirect reference; broadly : REFER
I never questioned the existence of the plan or stated that Apple should have complied.
My only assertion was that, despite some plan of MS's, QuickTime is still around.
[quote]<strong>Yes but MS TRIED it's hardest to get rid of QT, and that is a fact.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What company doesn't want to "get rid of" a competing product?
[quote]<strong>Oh so that justifies it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Justifies what?
Their actions "against" Netscape? Absolutely.
Their actions "against" Apple? Absolutely.
Their "unfair" business agreements (to which other companies agree)? Absolutely.
Business is business, don't come crying to me when you sign a deal with the devil.
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: groverat ]</p>
<strong>MS said either you buy separate licensing at a ridiculously high price(done on purpose) or you just use DOS and get it REAL CHEAP! What one wouldn't OEMs choose? Not saying that it isn't "business" nor did I say it was bad. I just claimed that is how MS got the Monopoly it has now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know, I'm not arguing - I'm discussing.
I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.
It doesn't. Antitrust law is perfectly OK with monopolies. It applies when a monopoly becomes abusive. What does "abusive" mean? It means that they start taking advantage of the fact that they have no competition. As long as a monopoly behaves as if they were competing in an open market, they will generally be left alone.
[quote]I'd be so angry if, when a company I owned reached a certain level of market share, the government then started imposing new legislation upon me that didn't apply to my competitors.<hr></blockquote>
If you're a monopoly, you don't have competitors.
The principle behind antitrust law recognizes that when one party has too much raw power, any interaction between them is inherently unfair, and any tactics they use have to be adjusted for size. If some drunk attacks a child, no-one would mind if the child fought back with all his might. If the same drunk attacked Mike Tyson, Mike would get in serious trouble for fighting back with all his might. But Microsoft isn't Mike Tyson to its "competitors" (i.e. anyone else in the software industry). It's more like Godzilla.
Some of the opposition certainly is less than idealist. I can't help but snicker every time Scott McNealy accuses MS of being monopolistic. But business and politics make strange bedfellows, and the basic point of the antitrust case rings true. Even at the height of the dot com enthusiasm, venture capitalists would refuse to fund any venture whose proposal looked too good because they knew what would happen if it caught Microsoft's eye. The mere presence of such an outsized, hyperaggressive company stifled the industry even at its most absurdly optimistic.
[quote]I have absolutely no objections to Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, or integrating the two in any way it sees fit.<hr></blockquote>
If it's part of a larger pattern of misconduct, I do. Taken in and of itself, I still think what they did is reprehensible. Commingling of code is stupid. MS knows that full well. They've published books in their Developer Network saying as much, and pushed COM and DCOM for that very reason. They are consciously and deliberately compromising the stability, maintainability and integrity of their code... for what? That's not illegal, but they can get away with it because they have no competitors.
[quote]Unfortunately for Microsoft, it agreed a deal with the government back in 1995 that set limits on what it could do in making its operating systems available to hardware manufacturers, and it's this agreement that the goverment has used to attack Microsoft at the bequest of its competitors.<hr></blockquote>
Because Microsoft ignored the consent agreement completely.
You forget: MS holds the whole process in such utter comtempt that they turned a free-market judge who was deeply skeptical of antitrust law or government enforcement - Jackson - into a bitter foe who established beyond any reasonable doubt and beyond any hope of appeal that they have been an abusive monopoly (not just a monopoly) and wholly contemptuous of the law. What the Bush Administration has taught them is that they were right to be. MS is now completely above the law unless something drastic happens.
[quote]Netscape had a belief that its software could be a platform in itself, and was somewhat naive in making that assumption.<hr></blockquote>
Only because Microsoft agreed with them.
(And because they tried implementing their own platform rather than just making a Web client, for which they have earned my eternal dislike.)
[quote]If competitors want to make inroads into Microsoft's market share, then they need to provide software that bests Microsoft's own. If this means they have to create a whole new operating system before they even start creating a rival to Office, then so be it.<hr></blockquote>
Huh?
There is far better software out there than Microsoft's own (not Netscape, though). It doesn't matter. It never has. As long as Microsoft continues to do what they have been doing, it never will.
I could (hypothetically
[quote]I understand Microsoft was found guilty of "abusing its monopoly powers", but I don't believe that those restrictions should have been placed on Microsoft in the first place.<hr></blockquote>
The restrictions were placed on Microsoft because it was abusing its monopoly power, not just because it was a monopoly. The DoJ only brought a suit (which they knew would be a long and costly endeavor) when MS thumbed its nose at the agreement.
[quote]If managing to gain a 90% market share, then using that position to increase share in other markets is "Un-American", then I'm ashamed to hold an American passport.<hr></blockquote>
If you don't like market economies, fine. Move to Europe.
<strong>I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.</strong><hr></blockquote>Well, every judge who has looked at it says they acted illegally. Even the 7-member appeals court who overturned the break-up remedy unanimously said the findings of fact were correct.
BTW, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/microsoftorder.pdf"; target="_blank">here's a .pdf file of that ruling.</a> 125 pages, but an interesting read. It's the one from this past June where they criticized Jackson's behavior and overturned the break-up remedy. It clearly spells out where they engaged in illegal behavior.
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: BRussell ]</p>
[quote]Amorph:
quote:For one thing, ActiveX controls can extend IE for Windows.
Could Microsoft, theoretically, port ActiveX to MacOSX(9,whatever), or would it have to be something Apple took care of.<hr></blockquote>
MS could port ActiveX to OS X (Not sure about OS 9). Apple could too, but I doubt they'd even try without MS' permission. Either way, it would be a very large effort, and it wouldn't solve the problem 100% because ActiveX controls are still compiled for Windows/x86.
[quote]I still see no advantage over "letting" Netscape exist. (Netscape is allowed all the market share it wants, it's free for God's sake. It just sucked/s)<hr></blockquote>
What do you mean? I'm not arguing that a subpar company should be propped up. I'm arguing that it should be allowed to fail on its own merits rather than being driven out unfairly.
[quote]quote: Tying it into the OS marries it to the OS, which is what they wanted. Otherwise, the Web would have become (ideally!) a platform- agnostic platform that they couldn't buy or control.
You say this as if the web is something MS owns and controls.<hr></blockquote>
It's something that they want to control. It's not in their interest to have a platform-agnostic application environment - whether the Web or XML or Java - that they don't control. It moots their OS dominance. If the applications you use can run just as well on MacOS, or Linux, or Solaris, why buy Windows?
Also, IE is much, much more that a web browser at this point. It can be extended with ActiveX (platform dependent). It can be skinned and turned into an application interface (browser and platform dependent). And so forth. The Web, as standardized by the W3C, is just the jumping-off point for MS.
[quote]quote: If Windows had, say, a 30% market share, would it have made sense for MS to bundle IE3 instead of a superior (or more popular) browser?
Yes, if they planned on the integration between the browser (that they control) with their Operating System.<hr></blockquote>
It was established during the trial, however, that they did it to kill Netscape. The integration strategy was done as an alibi to make it impossible to remove IE by tying it down to the OS - in a really poor way. There are plenty of ways that MS could have used to integrate the Web and ship their engine standard, but also make it a (set of) replaceable component(s) that used published APIs.
[quote]It's not wise to depend on another company to take care of a vital part of your operations for you.<hr></blockquote>
Actually, it's a commonplace: Hardware drivers are one obvious example. OS vendors license technology and code from third parties all the time.
<strong>It doesn't. Antitrust law is perfectly OK with monopolies. It applies when a monopoly becomes abusive. What does "abusive" mean? It means that they start taking advantage of the fact that they have no competition. As long as a monopoly behaves as if they were competing in an open market, they will generally be left alone.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But this is a problem of definition. Microsoft does have competition. There are countless developers whose products compete with Microsoft's. The reason Microsoft is considered a monopoly is because that competition is ineffectual, not because it doesn't exist.
As for anti-trust laws being imposed to prevent monopolies abusing their position - what's the point in striving to gain as much of a market as is possible if you are then punished for holding that position? And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.
Is it possible to have a capitalist economy and yet punish your financial successes?
[quote]<strong>If you're a monopoly, you don't have competitors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
See above. You have companies competing for a slice of the same market, it's just they're ineffectual. A definition problem.
[quote]<strong>The principle behind antitrust law recognizes that when one party has too much raw power, any interaction between them is inherently unfair, and any tactics they use have to be adjusted for size. If some drunk attacks a child, no-one would mind if the child fought back with all his might. If the same drunk attacked Mike Tyson, Mike would get in serious trouble for fighting back with all his might. But Microsoft isn't Mike Tyson to its "competitors" (i.e. anyone else in the software industry). It's more like Godzilla.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This doesn't work. Is Microsoft the drunk or the child/Mike Tyson? Either way, places are reversed in the second example.
[quote]<strong>Some of the opposition certainly is less than idealist. I can't help but snicker every time Scott McNealy accuses MS of being monopolistic. But business and politics make strange bedfellows, and the basic point of the antitrust case rings true. Even at the height of the dot com enthusiasm, venture capitalists would refuse to fund any venture whose proposal looked too good because they knew what would happen if it caught Microsoft's eye. The mere presence of such an outsized, hyperaggressive company stifled the industry even at its most absurdly optimistic.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is what aggravates me the most. No matter what your political or economic view, the validity of the action by Sun and Netscape is diminished because it's being taken off the battlefield.
[quote]<strong>If it's part of a larger pattern of misconduct, I do. Taken in and of itself, I still think what they did is reprehensible. Commingling of code is stupid. MS knows that full well. They've published books in their Developer Network saying as much, and pushed COM and DCOM for that very reason. They are consciously and deliberately compromising the stability, maintainability and integrity of their code... for what? That's not illegal, but they can get away with it because they have no competitors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, it is stupid, but I still wouldn't consider it illegal. And there is no larger pattern of misconduct in this anti-trust case. The whole case hinges on Microsoft breaking the 1995 agreement, then trying to get round it by including IE as part of the system software. If you don't believe that the agreement should have been forced on them in the first place, as I do, then the case has no weight.
Microsoft managed to get a huge market share very quickly despite having what most people considered a mediocre product. Only after its incredible success is it considered to have acted badly. And this is why I feel Microsoft is being treated unreasonably, and why I feel the anti-trust laws and monopoly controls are grossly unfair.
Instead of punishing Microsoft for its success in the face of mediocrity, its competitors should have acted earlier. Despite the work done at Xerox since 1973, and Apple's "borrowing" of these technologies and subsequent release of the Macintosh in 1984, Microsoft was the only company to have a GUI-based OS available on the Intel platform in 1985. And it was awful. Where were Microsoft's competitors then? You can't punish Microsoft after the fact because you have a gross lack of technical expertise and business sense.
[quote]<strong>Because Microsoft ignored the consent agreement completely.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've never argued this. But I still firmly believe it should never have been forced into such an agreement.
[quote]<strong>You forget: MS holds the whole process in such utter comtempt that they turned a free-market judge who was deeply skeptical of antitrust law or government enforcement - Jackson - into a bitter foe who established beyond any reasonable doubt and beyond any hope of appeal that they have been an abusive monopoly (not just a monopoly) and wholly contemptuous of the law. What the Bush Administration has taught them is that they were right to be. MS is now completely above the law unless something drastic happens.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Only because the law is an ass. And it's being made to look more of an ass because Microsoft is having to take measures to defend a case it should never have had to deal with in the first place. Don't mistake the actions of lawyers defending a client for misbehavior on the part of that client.
[quote]<strong>Only because Microsoft agreed with them.
(And because they tried implementing their own platform rather than just making a Web client, for which they have earned my eternal dislike.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Again, it's a very distasteful thing to do, but hardly a crime. And once again, why punish Microsoft for Netscape's ineptitude?
[quote]<strong>There is far better software out there than Microsoft's own (not Netscape, though). It doesn't matter. It never has. As long as Microsoft continues to do what they have been doing, it never will.
I could (hypothetically )write an office suite tomorrow that kicked Office all the way to kingdom come and back, and the first thing any reviewer would ask is, "is it compatible with Office?" If not, I'd be lucky to get a Nisus-like cult following no matter what. You're assuming that Office (and Explorer, and Windows) exists in a competitive landscape. It doesn't. That's the problem. Better OS's and better platforms and better applications have been sidelined, driven under, and otherwise made irrelevant for years.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This was my point. Microsoft's competitors can only be seen as bitter because they didn't get the foothold in the market many, many years ago. If a new company manages to create a stunning new OS that totally beats Windows in every regard, then introduces an Office-beating application, and yet not one customer is interested in changing over from Windows and Office, you can't blame Microsoft.
And as a developer, you can't take Microsoft to court because it's now too late for you to have any chance in the market. Ludicrous.
If someone did produce an amazing Office-beating app, perhaps then the government could take us consumers to court for being too stupid to buy it? It's not Microsoft's fault.
[quote]<strong>The restrictions were placed on Microsoft because it was abusing its monopoly power, not just because it was a monopoly. The DoJ only brought a suit (which they knew would be a long and costly endeavor) when MS thumbed its nose at the agreement.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Again, I haven't argued with this. Only that Microsoft should never have been put in that position in the first place.
[quote]<strong>If you don't like market economies, fine. Move to Europe. The sort of capitalism you seem to embrace gets along famously with European socialism.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hold both an American and United Kingdom passport.
But I'd argue that the capitilism I'm championing on behalf of Microsoft is exactly that upon which the United States economy and current politics are based.
The Bush administration would be absolutely defensive of Microsoft's actions if its "competitors" had been a foreign market.
[Oh, and the fact that Americans are apparently not proud of Microsoft's phenomenal success is a very socialistic trait.
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>
<strong>Well, every judge who has looked at it says they acted illegally. Even the 7-member appeals court who overturned the break-up remedy unanimously said the findings of fact were correct.
BTW, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/microsoftorder.pdf"; target="_blank">here's a .pdf file of that ruling.</a> 125 pages, but an interesting read. It's the one from this past June where they criticized Jackson's behavior and overturned the break-up remedy. It clearly spells out where they engaged in illegal behavior.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My apologies, BRussell, I didn't make the point in this post I had in the previous that I was arguing Microsoft should never have been bound by the laws that made its actions illegal. The only legal argument that holds as far as I'm concerned is that they broke the 1995 agreement, and that should never have been imposed.
<strong>
What Netscape product was there to put on the CD that would work with OSX?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Netscape does indeed have a browser that works with OS X does it not? Yes it does.
[quote]<strong>
You think too much of the Macintosh market, what use is using borderline-illegal tactics to get a browser monopoly on a platform you do not control?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Why did they Make Apple put IE as the default web browser in the Mac OS? or tell them if they didn't they'd pull Office. BTW this was just some of the proof that proved MS guilty of anti trust.
[quote]<strong>
I never questioned the existence of the plan or stated that Apple should have complied.
My only assertion was that, despite some plan of MS's, QuickTime is still around.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes QT is still around cause MS knew it was pushing it's luck on that one. But they tried anyhow.
<strong> [quote]
What company doesn't want to "get rid of" a competing product?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ah yes but lets get rid of a competitor by competing. Not Bullying. Sad that MS's products are not good enough to do it on their own merit.
<strong> [quote]
Justifies what?
Their actions "against" Netscape? Absolutely.
Their actions "against" Apple? Absolutely.
Their "unfair" business agreements (to which other companies agree)? Absolutely.
Business is business, don't come crying to me when you sign a deal with the devil.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh so that is why the government ruled that MS by doing these actions was using anti-competitive behavior to push other businesses out and gain market share. Something that isn't allowed in this country. Business is Business. Just as Illegal practices are Illegal.
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Sinewave ]</p>
<strong>
I know, I'm not arguing - I'm discussing.
I've yet to see one proven argument from any of the anti-Microsoft brigade (Caldera, Sun, Netscape...) that says to me they acted in an illegal or "un-American" way.</strong><hr></blockquote>
YOU may not see it. But the courts did. They did indeed practice anti-competitive behavior. That is against the American laws therefore "un-American"
More so than the GPL being "un-American"
<strong>YOU may not see it. But the courts did. They did indeed practice anti-competitive behavior. That is against the American laws therefore "un-American"
More so than the GPL being "un-American"</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know, see my response to BRussell's post above. The law is an ass.
[quote]But this is a problem of definition. Microsoft does have competition. There are countless developers whose products compete with Microsoft's. The reason Microsoft is considered a monopoly is because that competition is ineffectual, not because it doesn't exist.<hr></blockquote>
What, in practical terms, is the difference? An ineffectual competition is not practically distinguishable from no competition at all. That's why farm league teams don't play the Yankees.
(By the way, MS would be roughly analogous to Tyson in my last example, except that Tyson isn't big enough. So I suggested Godzilla.
[quote]As for anti-trust laws being imposed to prevent monopolies abusing their position - what's the point in striving to gain as much of a market as is possible if you are then punished for holding that position?<hr></blockquote>
Punished? I really don't like this rhetoric.
To understand antitrust law, you have to look at the big picture: One totally dominant company throwing its weight around is stifling and potentially dangerous. If you assume, as Americans traditionally have, that a free market is a good and healthy thing for the country, then anything that threatens a free market has to be contained regardless of how unfair it seems to whoever is threatening it. ("Free" here does not mean "totally unregulated," it means that there is a low barrier to entry.) Otherwise, there's no way to control it, and no way to offer alternatives to it. This is never a good situation for any human enterprise to be in. That's why the government - which is always in danger of falling afoul of the same problems - has so many restrictions and checks and balances applied to it. In fact, if half of those were applied to business, they'd scream bloody murder.
[quote]And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.<hr></blockquote>
I doubt it.
To my knowledge, nobody involved with the lawsuit has begrudged MS those companies who standardized on Windows - at least, not in the form of a legal complaint. In fact, I'm not sure how a monopolist ice cream company could get in trouble. Unlike hardware or software platforms, there are no markets built around ice cream brands - the same scoops and bowls and cones and spoons work with them all, etc. and you can't make your food incompatible with someone else's.
[quote]Is it possible to have a capitalist economy and yet punish your financial successes?<hr></blockquote>
Not Raj-style capitalism, but then America has, until very recently, held that at arm's length, and for good reason. We've paid more mind to Smith than to Ricardo.
It is not possible to have a market economy without putting some restraints on the occasional 800 pound gorilla, just as it is not possible to guarantee the freedom of every citizen without limiting the freedoms that some have to act (by virtue of wealth, charisma, etc.).
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
Windows Media Player can no longer create MP3s.
It is now bundled with WinXP the same way IE was with 98.
The courts ruled such bundling is illegal and provides no benefit to consumers.
Schools that choose all Windows hardware will be given free software incentives by MS that they will not provide to those that choose non Windows based hardware.
Such schools will take the "better" deal because they don't have the money.
Not only will those schools still be linked to MS's upgrade policies in the future costing them money but the students will not be shown alternatives to Windows.
Placing Windows PCs in these schools increases MS's market share - odd that we would punish a monopoly by increasing their only non-majority market share.
Yeah, its pretty dumb.
[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>What, in practical terms, is the difference? An ineffectual competition is not practically distinguishable from no competition at all. That's why farm league teams don't play the Yankees.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And yet the government doesn't place restrictions on the Yankee's so that the farm league teams can compete.
[quote]<strong>(By the way, MS would be roughly analogous to Tyson in my last example, except that Tyson isn't big enough. So I suggested Godzilla. The point was that if you're especially big or powerful you're expected to restrain yourself. I happen to know this first hand.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
But you can't legally insist that Tyson shows restraint if he's attacked, then drag him through the courts if he doesn't adhere. You can only try him after the fact. So while he would be breaking the law if he brutalized that poor drunk, he would not be tried for breaking an agreement because he should not, and could not, have been placed under one in the first place. Of course he's expected to show restraint, but you can't bind him to it with a legal writ.
[quote]<strong>Punished? I really don't like this rhetoric.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Crime and punishment. By our law, Microsoft has been found guilty of a crime, and right now lawyers are thrashing out what the appropriate punishment should be. It's not rhetoric.
[quote]<strong>To understand antitrust law, you have to look at the big picture: One totally dominant company throwing its weight around is stifling and potentially dangerous. If you assume, as Americans traditionally have, that a free market is a good and healthy thing for the country, then anything that threatens a free market has to be contained regardless of how unfair it seems to whoever is threatening it. ("Free" here does not mean "totally unregulated," it means that there is a low barrier to entry.) Otherwise, there's no way to control it, and no way to offer alternatives to it. This is never a good situation for any human enterprise to be in. That's why the government - which is always in danger of falling afoul of the same problems - has so many restrictions and checks and balances applied to it. In fact, if half of those were applied to business, they'd scream bloody murder.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I understand anti-trust law, I just don't like it.
If Microsoft wants to impose conditions of sale on its customers, that's its own business. What's criminal is the weakness of the customers for accepting that situation. I don't blame Microsoft if they did threaten to stop Office for Mac if Apple refused to install IE as the default browser. It's Microsoft's product, they can do what the hell they like, and it's Microsoft that lose revenue if Apple refuses. Apple's weakness, not Microsoft's strength.
[quote]<strong>I doubt it.
To my knowledge, nobody involved with the lawsuit has begrudged MS those companies who standardized on Windows - at least, not in the form of a legal complaint. In fact, I'm not sure how a monopolist ice cream company could get in trouble.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Excuse my example, it's weak, but the point is still valid. Ignore the technicalities.
[quote]<strong>Unlike hardware or software platforms, there are no markets built around ice cream brands - the same scoops and bowls and cones and spoons work with them all, etc. and you can't make your food incompatible with someone else's.</strong><hr></blockquote>
By that definition, Windows is the market, not general software and hardware. But in the real world there is Linux and Mac OS and Solaris. There is SPARC and PowerPC and Intel. Microsoft is a brand in a market. Ice cream is a commodity and a market, with a whole bunch of manufacturers competing for a share.
[quote]<strong>Not Raj-style capitalism, but then America has, until very recently, held that at arm's length, and for good reason. We've paid more mind to Smith than to Ricardo.
It is not possible to have a market economy without putting some restraints on the occasional 800 pound gorilla, just as it is not possible to guarantee the freedom of every citizen without limiting the freedoms that some have to act (by virtue of wealth, charisma, etc.).</strong><hr></blockquote>
But then you should have laws that govern the whole community, and not introduce legal restrictions on certain individuals because of their position. If Mike Tyson beats a drunk who attacks him, he'll be tried by the same law as a 3-foot tall midget with weak knees who viciously assaults that same drunk. The only difference, if there is any, would be in the severeness of the punishment. You do not say to the midget that he'll only be tried for the assault once he reaches a certain height and weight.
And yet there are laws that will only be applied to companies which hold a certain control over a market that its competitors do not.
Microsoft *is* the market. They built the landscape we see today.
Belle is absolutely right, everyone else was either late to the party or they didn't bring enough to meet the cover charge.
All Office-like apps need to be compatible with Office for success because Microsoft was Johnny-on-the-spot giving their customers that functionality.
WordPerfect used to be huge, I remember. When did it drop off the map? Think about it.
Anti-trust laws are, IMO, in place to protect the consumer, not to protect other mega-million $ corporations. That is the injustice Microsoft is facing. It's not hurting the people but it gets crucified (in the media) like Standard Oil.
Sinewave:
[quote]<strong>Netscape does indeed have a browser that works with OS X does it not? Yes it does.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Refresh my memory:
When was 10.0 released?
When was an OSX compatible version of Netscape released?
And even now, is the latest version of Netscape even worthy of being distributed on a CD?
Is Microsoft keeping OmniWeb off OSX CDs?
Are they poisoning Steve's childrens' Cheerios every morning?
[quote]<strong>Why did they Make Apple put IE as the default web browser in the Mac OS? or tell them if they didn't they'd pull Office. BTW this was just some of the proof that proved MS guilty of anti trust.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I believe that was the $150 million investment thing.
And even if (perhaps they did, it doesn't matter) M$ said "Make IE default or we pull Office!" what is illegal about that?
[quote]<strong>Ah yes but lets get rid of a competitor by competing. Not Bullying. Sad that MS's products are not good enough to do it on their own merit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They did compete, they competed Netscape's ass right off the map.
Netscape stopped shipping with Windows, oh well, that's competition. Netscape wasn't including versions of IE with its enterprise software, boo hoo!
[quote]<strong>Oh so that is why the government ruled that MS by doing these actions was using anti-competitive behavior to push other businesses out and gain market share. Something that isn't allowed in this country. Business is Business. Just as Illegal practices are Illegal.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have you been reading Belle's posts? Perhaps you should.
<strong>Microsoft *is* the market. They built the landscape we see today.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The crazy thing is that the District Court practically stated this as being the case by dismissing Apple entirely when considering whether or not Microsoft had a monopoly.
When was 10.0 released?
When was an OSX compatible version of Netscape released?
And even now, is the latest version of Netscape even worthy of being distributed on a CD?
<hr></blockquote>[/qb]
It's not on 10.1 CD... and it's no better or worse than IE for OS X is.
[quote]<strong>
Is Microsoft keeping OmniWeb off OSX CDs?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Well the deal is STILL in effect. How come IE gets updated through the software update but not Omniweb?
[quote]<strong>
I believe that was the $150 million investment thing.
<hr></blockquote></strong>
The $150 million was a payoff to get Apple to drop all it's legal issues still pending with MS and to share Technologies with Apple. It was not to pay them to use IE.
[quote]<strong>
And even if (perhaps they did, it doesn't matter) M$ said "Make IE default or we pull Office!" what is illegal about that?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Is that not using one monopoly to gain another? Yes it is. Even the Supreme Courts said this.
<strong> [quote]
did compete, they competed Netscape's ass right off the map.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh bullshit grover. IE had most of the market share before it was worth a shit. It didn't compete at all.
<strong> [quote]
Netscape stopped shipping with Windows, oh well, that's competition. Netscape wasn't including versions of IE with its enterprise software, boo hoo!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Netscape's doesn't have a monopoly on software like it's enterprise software does it? No it doesn't.
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Sinewave ]</p>
<strong>The whole case hinges on Microsoft breaking the 1995 agreement, then trying to get round it by including IE as part of the system software. If you don't believe that the agreement should have been forced on them in the first place, as I do, then the case has no weight.</strong><hr></blockquote>It may be true that DoJ initially accused MS of violating their settlement agreement, but they were explicitly found innocent of that (actually by the same DC Court of Appeals). They have been found guilty of violating the Sherman Act, not their consent decree. That's on page 7 of that appeals court ruling linked above. [quote]And those laws will only be applied if you hold a monopoly! So I make a deal with Starbucks whereby it sells my fantastic homemade ice cream in the summer months, and I ask it to agree not to sell any other brand. If they sign on the dotted line, and I suddenly take 5% of the market away from Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Daz, I'd be up for Businesswoman of the Year 2002. If I used the same tactics whilst already holding 90% of the ice cream market, I'd be spending 2002 in court.<hr></blockquote>That's not what they've been found guilty of, though. A better analogy is if a company sold most of the world's milk, and then started selling ice cream, too. Although their ice cream didn't taste as good, they put secret ingredients in their milk so their competitors' ice-cream would turn to mush. That way, they killed off the other ice-cream businesses, simply because they owned the milk, not because they were competitive at making ice cream.
About whether anti-trust laws discriminate against monopolies:
It's not illegal to have a gun, but it is illegal to shoot someone with it. Would you say that the laws against shooting people discriminate against people with guns?
Netscape 6.2 for OSX is just as good as IE 5.1 for OSX? Is that what you're saying?
[quote]<strong>Well the deal is STILL in effect. How come IE gets updated through the software update but not Omniweb?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Because IE is the default shipping browser. Because IE is just another 3rd party app from just another 3rd party app company. Microsoft is Apple's biggest ally and IE is the best browser for the Macintosh platform.
That's a stupid question.
[quote]<strong>The $150 million was a payoff to get Apple to drop all it's legal issues still pending with MS and to share Technologies with Apple. It was not to pay them to use IE.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple's legal issues with Microsoft were pure bullshit that they had no chance of winning. Apple was not a legal threat to Microsoft. The freaking DOJ can't hurt Microsoft.
The $150 million was a bailout and got Microsoft influence over Apple. IE being default could very well be a result.
[quote]<strong>Is that not using one monopoly to gain another? Yes it is. Even the Supreme Courts said this.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ooooh, a monopoly on the lucrative Mac browser market.
And leveraging an Office monopoly? You're reaching. Perhaps Apple shouldn't depend so much on a 3rd party company.
[quote]<strong>Oh bullshit grover. IE had most of the market share before it was worth a shit. It didn't compete at all. </strong><hr></blockquote>
If you'd take off the rose-colored glasses you'd see that Netscape sucked just as bad as IE used to.
[quote]<strong>Netscape's doesn't have a monopoly on software like it's enterprise software does it? No it doesn't.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What does that matter?
BRussell:
If you add that milk and ice cream are supposed to change constantly and that Microsoft essentially invented milk and ice cream then that analogy might hold a llittle water.