What I'm totally disagreeing with was the notion that MS should be allowed to make a browser, and give it away for free, in a market where the main income for other browser companies was the sale of the browser itself.
That destroyed the market for serious competition in browsers. Firefox is cheered because it has over 10% of the market right now. It might go to 15%, or even 20%, but it's unlikely to go much higher.
If MS was forced to have the browser as a freestanding product, as they did in the beginning, then it would have had to stand on its quality, which it couldn't.
Only after MS destroyed Netscape's business model, and they could no longer afford the constant R&D, did IE begin to surpass it.
MS did the same to Persuasion, the best presentation program out there. Persuasion outsold Powerpoint at better than 3 to 1 retail. But when MS put the inferior product into Office, Persuasion disappeared. You can't compete with a free product, as long as it's supported by MS, and is just "good enough".
Because of its position, MS should not be allowed to compete if it isn't doing so on a level playing field. That means charging proper amounts for its products, and seeing if they can succeed.
The only reason why the X Box is still around is because of the monopoly profits from the OS and Office. No other company would have continued to produce if after losing so much money.
What makes me mad is not that M$ cannot innovate, invent, or even copy well. It is not that they have marketplace dominance, all the money and resources in the world to crush anyone (and they choose to crush people on a regular basis.). It is not that they have a monkey as their CEO who is just as obsessed in controlling the world as the wimpy nerdy major complex creator of M$ itself. It is not because the only product to crash a mac is a M$ product. And it is certianly not because everyone that operates under a M$ operating system eventually becomes an expert at "Workarounds" or they fail to get anything done and wither away as a failed individual or business. But what really makes me mad is that the "Majority" of the human race (sheep), prefers this.
MS could force every other software company out of existence if they weren't prevented from doing so, just as they basically put Netscape out of business, and others as well.
[different post]
Only after MS destroyed Netscape's business model, and they could no longer afford the constant R&D, did IE begin to surpass it.
Not to jump on a MS bandwagon but, what was it Netscape was trying to sell?? What business model?? Oh that's right they didn't sell anything! They failed due to the myth of marketshare will make you rich even if you aren't actually selling anything. Great browser for its day, but nothing to sell, just a vacant promise that someday the marketshare will magically generate a sellable produce and crap money everywhere. They just went down early, the rest of the dot-com debacle just chose to ignore the failure by attributing it to MS, not a hemmorage of $$ with no realistic plan to actually make money. Took a couple years but almost everyone learned that lesson in 2000/2001.
You other examples are pretty good, I forget the name of the disk compression firm that got eviscerated as well.
To try and argue that it doesn't work in a capitalistic way is rather bizzare.
The music is monopolized, and only one label has the right to sell that music. It's not like HP at all, as any half-decent computer shop can customize a computer for me, and that computer will be able to run the same OS as the HP one. It'll even look the same, let alone do the same exact job.
Can you sing the same way as Madonna if I'm free to pursue other alternatives? No, because having musical talent is not the same as having engineering talent; you can be replaced, Madonna can't. Any experienced, good engineer can do your job - not even the most experienced singers can become Madonna.
Quote:
The product is music (the fact that it is more creative than some other products in neither here nor there - it doesn't matter), there are thousands of companies producing the same product.
There are thousands of companies producing Madonna's latest album? That's news for me.
Quote:
That fight is definitely up to the artist, not you.
It wouldn't hurt if you realized that too, and stopped accusing people of stealing in every post.
Not to jump on a MS bandwagon but, what was it Netscape was trying to sell?? What business model?? Oh that's right they didn't sell anything! They failed due to the myth of marketshare will make you rich even if you aren't actually selling anything. Great browser for its day, but nothing to sell, just a vacant promise that someday the marketshare will magically generate a sellable produce and crap money everywhere. They just went down early, the rest of the dot-com debacle just chose to ignore the failure by attributing it to MS, not a hemmorage of $$ with no realistic plan to actually make money. Took a couple years but almost everyone learned that lesson in 2000/2001.
You other examples are pretty good, I forget the name of the disk compression firm that got eviscerated as well.
I'm not sure what your talking about there.
Netscape had a fine business model. They came out with the first real browser. They also had an enterprise server solution that was doing well.
They charged $39.95 for the browser, which was fair. It sold very well, and had 85% of the browser market.
In those days, the server software that sold best was the software from the same company that the browser was from. So, if your company standardized on Netscape, you would buy their server software as well.
Once MS stopped charging for IE, because it wasn't selling, and put on the desktop, for free, already set-up, and made it difficult to change, Netscape was in trouble.
Don't forget that in those days it wasn't easy to download a big program and install it for most people. If IE was already there, and working, and free, why would someone spend over an hour downloading Netscape, and then go through the procedure to install it and remove IE from the preferred browser list?
Few people were willing to do that, and pay for it.
Netscape's share started to freefall. They had to drop the charge for it, which meant that 75% of their income was gone.
I still have my Netscape cap they sent me when I bought the program.
The music is monopolized, and only one label has the right to sell that music. It's not like HP at all, as any half-decent computer shop can customize a computer for me, and that computer will be able to run the same OS as the HP one. It'll even look the same, let alone do the same exact job.
Can you sing the same way as Madonna if I'm free to pursue other alternatives? No, because having musical talent is not the same as having engineering talent; you can be replaced, Madonna can't. Any experienced, good engineer can do your job - not even the most experienced singers can become Madonna.
Any experienced and suitably talented female singer can do the same job as Madonna, they just won't do it exactly the same way.
No other engineer would work exactly the way I do. But you are right, the difference between me designing something to a specification and another engineer designing something to the same spec. should be less than the difference between Madonna and another female artist.
But all this talk about the degree of creativity in a product is totally beside the point. The product is music. Thousands of companies produce said product. The market is a capitalistic one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gene Clean
It wouldn't hurt if you realized that too, and stopped accusing people of stealing in every post.
I'm sorry it came across like that. I meant it more in a general way (as in a plural "you" rather than singular), because the arguments I was responding to are often used as excuses for piracy.
Next, could someone's government please sue all of the vacuum cleaner manufacturers because not all of the vacuum cleaner bags are compatible with all of the vacuum cleaners?
Of course vacuum cleaner manufacturers can make vacuum cleaner bags of any weird size and shape they like, and screw compatibility if they wish.
But guess what? Anyone else who wants to, not just the vacuum cleaner manufacturers themselves, can make and sell compatible bags. The vacuum cleaner manufacturers don't get to corner market on bags via deliberate incompatibility.
What too many people don't seem to get is the government role in enforcing the legality and illegality of various acts, who's benefitting, who isn't, and who's paying the bills for that enforcement.
As it's a bit late at night for me, I'll leave it at that for now.
Netscape had a fine business model. They came out with the first real browser. They also had an enterprise server solution that was doing well.
They charged $39.95 for the browser, which was fair. It sold very well, and had 85% of the browser market.
In those days, the server software that sold best was the software from the same company that the browser was from. So, if your company standardized on Netscape, you would buy their server software as well.
Once MS stopped charging for IE, because it wasn't selling, and put on the desktop, for free, already set-up, and made it difficult to change, Netscape was in trouble.
Don't forget that in those days it wasn't easy to download a big program and install it for most people. If IE was already there, and working, and free, why would someone spend over an hour downloading Netscape, and then go through the procedure to install it and remove IE from the preferred browser list?
Few people were willing to do that, and pay for it.
Netscape's share started to freefall. They had to drop the charge for it, which meant that 75% of their income was gone.
I still have my Netscape cap they sent me when I bought the program.
Glad you bought the cap, so was Andressen.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!. Good strategy, give away over 75% of your shipping product. The part that took the longest to develop and the only part that distinguished their company from any other. HTTP server software isn't exactly rocket science and in actuality one reliable back-end is as good as another reliable back-end. The reliable part takes a bit of work, but that's under the hood goodness, not set my product apart from the pack sexiness.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!. Good strategy, give away over 75% of your shipping product. The part that took the longest to develop and the only part that distinguished their company from any other. HTTP server software isn't exactly rocket science and in actuality one reliable back-end is as good as another reliable back-end. The reliable part takes a bit of work, but that's under the hood goodness, not set my product apart from the pack sexiness.
That happened AFTER the MS "difficultys".
Believe me, they did charge for it. I still have both the cap and the software, in the box.
When this whole thing started, it was closer to rocket science than it is now.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!.
That is not true. You couldn't get Netscape for free directly from Netscape.
There were, however, many ISPs that offered it to you for free as part of a bundle.
That is not true. You couldn't get Netscape for free directly from Netscape.
There were, however, many ISPs that offered it to you for free as part of a bundle.
Yes, you could. And once it was downloaded and started up you could click the "Use Unlicensed" button. Shareware style. Ancient history and hardly worth arguing about anymore though.
Believe me, they did charge for it. I still have both the cap and the software, in the box.
When this whole thing started, it was closer to rocket science than it is now.
No this was during the heyday of the difficulty. Andressen's email was actually read into evidence at the trial and was considered relevant (date-wise) as it was from before the original tied-in release of IE, back when IE was just another app. MS tried to pawn this off as NS wasn't losing any revenue to them because they were intentionally giving NS away to 75% of it's customers. I would agree it was fairly irrelevant to MS's intent of trying to strangle NS and other perceived competitors, but it's out there. None of that spoke to MS's motivations which were not on the up and up regardless of what NS (or anyone else) was planning or doing, which is a big part of why MS eventually lost the monopoly abuse case.
I believe you that they charged for it, it's just not that they felt it was mandatory. You had the option to use it without paying and they did nothing explicit to prevent that, and even made that option relatively easy.
I believe you that they charged for it, it's just not that they felt it was mandatory. You had the option to use it without paying and they did nothing explicit to prevent that, and even made that option relatively easy.
Hiro, that wasn't in the beginning. I bought the stock when it first came out, and I was pretty familiar with what was happening, else I wouldn't have bought it.
Their big mistake was in their fervent support of open standards. They could have owned that market from the beginning, but allowed everyone to use their developments. Their fault was in being naive, thinking that MS would hew to that as well, while playing fair in the market.
Actually, iPods cannot play WMA (the hardware is capable, but Apple don't provide a WMA codec). iTunes on Windows (and maybe OS X, haven't checked) can convert WMA to AAC, which entails quality loss.
Oops! my bad
Yes, it's iTunes that can play (unprotected) WMA, but not the iPod.
Comments
What I'm totally disagreeing with was the notion that MS should be allowed to make a browser, and give it away for free, in a market where the main income for other browser companies was the sale of the browser itself.
That destroyed the market for serious competition in browsers. Firefox is cheered because it has over 10% of the market right now. It might go to 15%, or even 20%, but it's unlikely to go much higher.
If MS was forced to have the browser as a freestanding product, as they did in the beginning, then it would have had to stand on its quality, which it couldn't.
Only after MS destroyed Netscape's business model, and they could no longer afford the constant R&D, did IE begin to surpass it.
MS did the same to Persuasion, the best presentation program out there. Persuasion outsold Powerpoint at better than 3 to 1 retail. But when MS put the inferior product into Office, Persuasion disappeared. You can't compete with a free product, as long as it's supported by MS, and is just "good enough".
Because of its position, MS should not be allowed to compete if it isn't doing so on a level playing field. That means charging proper amounts for its products, and seeing if they can succeed.
The only reason why the X Box is still around is because of the monopoly profits from the OS and Office. No other company would have continued to produce if after losing so much money.
What makes me mad is not that M$ cannot innovate, invent, or even copy well. It is not that they have marketplace dominance, all the money and resources in the world to crush anyone (and they choose to crush people on a regular basis.). It is not that they have a monkey as their CEO who is just as obsessed in controlling the world as the wimpy nerdy major complex creator of M$ itself. It is not because the only product to crash a mac is a M$ product. And it is certianly not because everyone that operates under a M$ operating system eventually becomes an expert at "Workarounds" or they fail to get anything done and wither away as a failed individual or business. But what really makes me mad is that the "Majority" of the human race (sheep), prefers this.
God help the Humans.
MS could force every other software company out of existence if they weren't prevented from doing so, just as they basically put Netscape out of business, and others as well.
[different post]
Only after MS destroyed Netscape's business model, and they could no longer afford the constant R&D, did IE begin to surpass it.
Not to jump on a MS bandwagon but, what was it Netscape was trying to sell?? What business model?? Oh that's right they didn't sell anything! They failed due to the myth of marketshare will make you rich even if you aren't actually selling anything. Great browser for its day, but nothing to sell, just a vacant promise that someday the marketshare will magically generate a sellable produce and crap money everywhere. They just went down early, the rest of the dot-com debacle just chose to ignore the failure by attributing it to MS, not a hemmorage of $$ with no realistic plan to actually make money. Took a couple years but almost everyone learned that lesson in 2000/2001.
You other examples are pretty good, I forget the name of the disk compression firm that got eviscerated as well.
To try and argue that it doesn't work in a capitalistic way is rather bizzare.
The music is monopolized, and only one label has the right to sell that music. It's not like HP at all, as any half-decent computer shop can customize a computer for me, and that computer will be able to run the same OS as the HP one. It'll even look the same, let alone do the same exact job.
Can you sing the same way as Madonna if I'm free to pursue other alternatives? No, because having musical talent is not the same as having engineering talent; you can be replaced, Madonna can't. Any experienced, good engineer can do your job - not even the most experienced singers can become Madonna.
The product is music (the fact that it is more creative than some other products in neither here nor there - it doesn't matter), there are thousands of companies producing the same product.
There are thousands of companies producing Madonna's latest album? That's news for me.
That fight is definitely up to the artist, not you.
It wouldn't hurt if you realized that too, and stopped accusing people of stealing in every post.
Not to jump on a MS bandwagon but, what was it Netscape was trying to sell?? What business model?? Oh that's right they didn't sell anything! They failed due to the myth of marketshare will make you rich even if you aren't actually selling anything. Great browser for its day, but nothing to sell, just a vacant promise that someday the marketshare will magically generate a sellable produce and crap money everywhere. They just went down early, the rest of the dot-com debacle just chose to ignore the failure by attributing it to MS, not a hemmorage of $$ with no realistic plan to actually make money. Took a couple years but almost everyone learned that lesson in 2000/2001.
You other examples are pretty good, I forget the name of the disk compression firm that got eviscerated as well.
I'm not sure what your talking about there.
Netscape had a fine business model. They came out with the first real browser. They also had an enterprise server solution that was doing well.
They charged $39.95 for the browser, which was fair. It sold very well, and had 85% of the browser market.
In those days, the server software that sold best was the software from the same company that the browser was from. So, if your company standardized on Netscape, you would buy their server software as well.
Once MS stopped charging for IE, because it wasn't selling, and put on the desktop, for free, already set-up, and made it difficult to change, Netscape was in trouble.
Don't forget that in those days it wasn't easy to download a big program and install it for most people. If IE was already there, and working, and free, why would someone spend over an hour downloading Netscape, and then go through the procedure to install it and remove IE from the preferred browser list?
Few people were willing to do that, and pay for it.
Netscape's share started to freefall. They had to drop the charge for it, which meant that 75% of their income was gone.
I still have my Netscape cap they sent me when I bought the program.
The music is monopolized, and only one label has the right to sell that music. It's not like HP at all, as any half-decent computer shop can customize a computer for me, and that computer will be able to run the same OS as the HP one. It'll even look the same, let alone do the same exact job.
Can you sing the same way as Madonna if I'm free to pursue other alternatives? No, because having musical talent is not the same as having engineering talent; you can be replaced, Madonna can't. Any experienced, good engineer can do your job - not even the most experienced singers can become Madonna.
Any experienced and suitably talented female singer can do the same job as Madonna, they just won't do it exactly the same way.
No other engineer would work exactly the way I do. But you are right, the difference between me designing something to a specification and another engineer designing something to the same spec. should be less than the difference between Madonna and another female artist.
But all this talk about the degree of creativity in a product is totally beside the point. The product is music. Thousands of companies produce said product. The market is a capitalistic one.
It wouldn't hurt if you realized that too, and stopped accusing people of stealing in every post.
I'm sorry it came across like that. I meant it more in a general way (as in a plural "you" rather than singular), because the arguments I was responding to are often used as excuses for piracy.
Next, could someone's government please sue all of the vacuum cleaner manufacturers because not all of the vacuum cleaner bags are compatible with all of the vacuum cleaners?
Of course vacuum cleaner manufacturers can make vacuum cleaner bags of any weird size and shape they like, and screw compatibility if they wish.
But guess what? Anyone else who wants to, not just the vacuum cleaner manufacturers themselves, can make and sell compatible bags. The vacuum cleaner manufacturers don't get to corner market on bags via deliberate incompatibility.
What too many people don't seem to get is the government role in enforcing the legality and illegality of various acts, who's benefitting, who isn't, and who's paying the bills for that enforcement.
As it's a bit late at night for me, I'll leave it at that for now.
I'm not sure what your talking about there.
Netscape had a fine business model. They came out with the first real browser. They also had an enterprise server solution that was doing well.
They charged $39.95 for the browser, which was fair. It sold very well, and had 85% of the browser market.
In those days, the server software that sold best was the software from the same company that the browser was from. So, if your company standardized on Netscape, you would buy their server software as well.
Once MS stopped charging for IE, because it wasn't selling, and put on the desktop, for free, already set-up, and made it difficult to change, Netscape was in trouble.
Don't forget that in those days it wasn't easy to download a big program and install it for most people. If IE was already there, and working, and free, why would someone spend over an hour downloading Netscape, and then go through the procedure to install it and remove IE from the preferred browser list?
Few people were willing to do that, and pay for it.
Netscape's share started to freefall. They had to drop the charge for it, which meant that 75% of their income was gone.
I still have my Netscape cap they sent me when I bought the program.
Glad you bought the cap, so was Andressen.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!. Good strategy, give away over 75% of your shipping product. The part that took the longest to develop and the only part that distinguished their company from any other. HTTP server software isn't exactly rocket science and in actuality one reliable back-end is as good as another reliable back-end. The reliable part takes a bit of work, but that's under the hood goodness, not set my product apart from the pack sexiness.
Glad you bought the cap, so was Andressen.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!. Good strategy, give away over 75% of your shipping product. The part that took the longest to develop and the only part that distinguished their company from any other. HTTP server software isn't exactly rocket science and in actuality one reliable back-end is as good as another reliable back-end. The reliable part takes a bit of work, but that's under the hood goodness, not set my product apart from the pack sexiness.
That happened AFTER the MS "difficultys".
Believe me, they did charge for it. I still have both the cap and the software, in the box.
When this whole thing started, it was closer to rocket science than it is now.
Matter of fact he was the one who made the decision to say NS was a licenced app that cost $39.95, but that NS did not actually look to charge individuals under the personal use clause of the license -- read it's FREE!!!.
That is not true. You couldn't get Netscape for free directly from Netscape.
There were, however, many ISPs that offered it to you for free as part of a bundle.
That is not true. You couldn't get Netscape for free directly from Netscape.
There were, however, many ISPs that offered it to you for free as part of a bundle.
And, of course, they paid Netscape a fee based on how many copies they distributed.
That is not true. You couldn't get Netscape for free directly from Netscape.
There were, however, many ISPs that offered it to you for free as part of a bundle.
Yes, you could. And once it was downloaded and started up you could click the "Use Unlicensed" button. Shareware style. Ancient history and hardly worth arguing about anymore though.
That happened AFTER the MS "difficultys".
Believe me, they did charge for it. I still have both the cap and the software, in the box.
When this whole thing started, it was closer to rocket science than it is now.
No this was during the heyday of the difficulty. Andressen's email was actually read into evidence at the trial and was considered relevant (date-wise) as it was from before the original tied-in release of IE, back when IE was just another app. MS tried to pawn this off as NS wasn't losing any revenue to them because they were intentionally giving NS away to 75% of it's customers. I would agree it was fairly irrelevant to MS's intent of trying to strangle NS and other perceived competitors, but it's out there. None of that spoke to MS's motivations which were not on the up and up regardless of what NS (or anyone else) was planning or doing, which is a big part of why MS eventually lost the monopoly abuse case.
I believe you that they charged for it, it's just not that they felt it was mandatory. You had the option to use it without paying and they did nothing explicit to prevent that, and even made that option relatively easy.
I believe you that they charged for it, it's just not that they felt it was mandatory. You had the option to use it without paying and they did nothing explicit to prevent that, and even made that option relatively easy.
Hiro, that wasn't in the beginning. I bought the stock when it first came out, and I was pretty familiar with what was happening, else I wouldn't have bought it.
Their big mistake was in their fervent support of open standards. They could have owned that market from the beginning, but allowed everyone to use their developments. Their fault was in being naive, thinking that MS would hew to that as well, while playing fair in the market.
Actually, iPods cannot play WMA (the hardware is capable, but Apple don't provide a WMA codec). iTunes on Windows (and maybe OS X, haven't checked) can convert WMA to AAC, which entails quality loss.
Oops! my bad
Yes, it's iTunes that can play (unprotected) WMA, but not the iPod.
Why you would want to, I have no clue.