I just read some of your posts, you need to be more informed, post your email and I will send you the ruling of the Appeals Court against MS. It is point by point, about 124 or 125 pages, worth reading.
Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.
Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later ... these things don't affect consumers? Heck man, I am not claiming that MS should get screwed because they stole Apple's GUI, I am saying its because AVIs don't work, IE is not as fast as iCab or Opera yet they use Windows to keep its market share high, that all of their software uses proprietary save formats so if I use any of it [Office, IE, WMP] I can't use competitors products on those same documents without either A) 3rd party hacks [also called translators], or nothing because WMP files do not get opened by ANYTHING.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
The Sherman Act authorizes the government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them. Before it can be invoked, you have to prove that the trusts actions were "in restraint of trade or commerce". The proof in this case is based on a collection of incidents, many of which have not even been proven, which do not constitute a "restraint of trade or commerce". I'm arguing that Microsoft's business practices were attempts to increase its own sales, not restrain those of its competitors.
[quote]<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Could you explain your adapted analogy? I can't seem to tie in with any of the arguments against Microsoft. I'm probably being stupid.
[quote]<strong>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?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The law is the same for everyone, whether they have a gun or not.
Apple shouldn't depend on 3rd party companies, so you think they should dumb developers?
IE is the best? -- no. and yes I would say that NSC6.2 is equal with IE 5.1
This is about two things: stifling competition [ILLEGAL] and harming customers [ALSO ILLEGAL] because of having monopoly status [which is LEGAL].
Office was ruled a monopoly on the Macintosh platform by the Appeals Court, again in the PDF I have of the ruling which I downloaded from some .gov site when it came out. And no matter how big or small the Mac market is now legal fact that MS used that as a thread to try and stop QuickTime on the Windows market [just for you Groverat ... THE BIG MARKET!] and that is ... whether it worked or not ... ILLEGAL.
See thing is the size of the market doesn't matter, it could be big, it could be little. Its whether you hurt competition [they did and still do] or hurt customers [they did and still do].
Reaching? Man, you are in denial, the courts have said it is a fact these things happened, MS does not get to disagree, its the way it is.
Do you see a trend yet ... its all ILLEGAL ... say it with me ... I--LL--E--G--A--L ... come on I know you can.
See the court doesn't care if you happen to like IE better, thats fine, whatever, its cool, but thing is that if I don't like IE the court does care that MS did ILLEGAL things to make it harder for me THE CONSUMER to get and use the other web browsers.
<strong>Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The argument as to whether Microsoft hurts consumers is quantitive, so it's too hard to argue either way. However, clearly Microsoft is charging a price that consumers will stand. People are still buying its products. Microsoft is a moneymaking organization. You don't charge 10c for a can of Pepsi when consumers are quite happy to pay 50c or more for sugary water.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later</strong><hr></blockquote>
The QuickTime accusation is not part of the evidence given in the final order against Microsoft. The evidence also does not state that Microsoft "hurt the performance" of Java.
My 2-3 times statement was just an expression of what the class action suit is all about - over charging. But you are right, MS should be allowed to make money, they are a company.
On the other notes I am now digging for the PDF of the ruling.
<strong>Office was ruled a monopoly on the Macintosh platform by the Appeals Court, again in the PDF I have of the ruling which I downloaded from some .gov site when it came out. And no matter how big or small the Mac market is now legal fact that MS used that as a thread to try and stop QuickTime on the Windows market [just for you Groverat ... THE BIG MARKET!] and that is ... whether it worked or not ... ILLEGAL.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And this is one of the most disgusting parts of the whole situation. To quote from the order:
[quote]In 1997, Apple ?s business was in steep decline, and many doubted that the company would survive much longer. Many ISVs questioned the wisdom of continuing to spend time and money developing applications for the Mac OS. Had Microsoft announced in the midst of this atmosphere that it was ceasing to develop new versions of Mac Office,a great number ISVs, customers, developers, and investors would have interpreted the announcement as Apple?s death notice.<hr></blockquote>
(ISV = Independent Software Vendor).
So let me get this straight... the court is suggesting that if Microsoft had announced it was ceasing development of Mac Office, many ISVs, customers, developers, and investors would see it as Apple's death notice, not an opportunity on their part to profit from the death one of the platforms major applications?! That supposition shows a gross failing on the part of those individuals, not Microsoft.
Also, that Mac Office was included as evidence of Microsoft's monopolistic ways, even though Apple was not even included in the equation when deciding whether Microsoft held a monopoly, is disgusting. That's a grievous abuse of the use of evidence.
[quote]<strong>I just read some of your posts, you need to be more informed, post your email and I will send you the ruling of the Appeals Court against MS. It is point by point, about 124 or 125 pages, worth reading.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Look above my post. See where it says "e-mail"? That's e-mail.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very easily explained:
Their OS is their money product, not hardware.
Apple's hardware is their money product, not software.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later ... these things don't affect consumers?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought the beef with MS's treatment of Java was them changing it to where it was faster but only ran on Windows.
Never heard of the QT issue, care to enlighten me?
[quote]<strong>I am saying its because AVIs don't work,</strong><hr></blockquote>
They don't?
[quote]<strong>IE is not as fast as iCab or Opera yet they use Windows to keep its market share high,</strong><hr></blockquote>
What does this matter?
I prefer Audion to iTunes. SUE APPLE!
[quote]<strong>that all of their software uses proprietary save formats so if I use any of it [Office, IE, WMP] I can't use competitors products on those same documents without either A) 3rd party hacks [also called translators], or nothing because WMP files do not get opened by ANYTHING.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Tons of apps use proprietary formats, since when is that a bad thing?
[quote]<strong>Apple shouldn't depend on 3rd party companies, so you think they should dumb developers?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Depending on 3rd parties is fine if you want, but there's no reason to fault a company for wanting to handle its business in house.
You can go on and on and whine and whine and twist things around till your blue in the face. Fact is MS DID abuse their Monopoly powers. And MS DID use anti-competitive behavior to gain mkt share.
Saying other wise makes you look like a moron and a MS apologist.
"I might not know what I'm talking about and I definitely don't understand your point, but I'm right so get over it."
No one said MS never broke the rules, just that Nutscrape and Apple weren't involved in that process. Also, the charges they got busted on were bullshit.
<strong>Could you explain your adapted analogy? I can't seem to tie in with any of the arguments against Microsoft.</strong><hr></blockquote>I was just trying to say that MS has not been found guilty of simply giving good deals to others in exchange for exclusive licensing, which is what your analogy suggested. They've been found guilty of trying to beat their competition in the browser/Java market by manipulating their OS, on which the browser/Java market depends. (And doing some other stuff, which my analogy didn't include.)
I understand that you disagree with the law. But here's another question for you - do you think all charges against MS should be dropped, despite the law? Disagreeing with the law is not an excuse to break it, is it?
<strong>Hard to do when MS tried everything they could to make it hard to use Netscape for their default browser. Including coding the browser into the OS...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've never understood this complaint. Netscape believed they were building a rival platform to Windows. Sure, a browser can be thought of as only an app but there's nothing wrong with thinking of it in broader terms. Integrating it into the OS seems a fairly natural progression to me. This isn't to say that MS didn't do a hack job of grafting IE onto Windows, though.
[quote]<strong>It took about 2/3 years for IE to even get close. It wasn't till 97 did MS really start making a decent browser. By then they had the mkt share, It had NOTHING to do with IE being better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A good chunk of that market share came from AOL using IE for their software. Once they purchased Netscape, AOL could have replaced IE or issued a second version based on Netscape but they didn't. IE won the browser wars because MS kept improving their product until it was better than Netscape. Netscape tried to sit on their lead and once IE caught up to them they gave up. However good Navigator/Communicator once was, it stopped being all that good a long time ago. And Netscape has done little to nothing about it. Only now is Mozilla becoming usable and that has nothing to do with AOL/Netscape (beyond the initial decision to make the code open). I have no sympathy for Netscape.
It's quite obvious by now that Microsoft had a reason for tying IE to the OS, it's an attempt (like it or not) to blur the line between your computer and the internet. Explorer browses your file system and the web. There is a purpose.
So I ask again, what was Microsoft supposed to do?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree it is obvious that MS had a legitimate reason to integrate IE. That doesn't mean that was the only way to do things. There was a great deal of debate within MS about this very question. The "integrationists" won.
And it is true that this helped extend MS's monopoly position but there was a time when MS wasn't at all sure about their competitive position. The whole internet thing caught Gates totally unprepared. MS responded as much out of desperation (yes, that's the correct word) as anything.
<strong>e the rules, just that Nutscrape and Apple weren't involved in that process. Also, the charges they got busted on were bullshit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Appeals Court ruled that MS's reason's for bundling IE with Windows did not prove any legitimate improvement for consumers and was illegal, it has also been shown that bundling is being done by MS not to connect the OS to the internet or multimedia but to blur the line between the OS and 3rd party software so that MS is able to squeeze out competition by using its existing OS control with the Windows monopoly.
<strong>The Appeals Court ruled that MS's reason's for bundling IE with Windows did not prove any legitimate improvement for consumers and was illegal, it has also been shown that bundling is being done by MS not to connect the OS to the internet or multimedia but to blur the line between the OS and 3rd party software so that MS is able to squeeze out competition by using its existing OS control with the Windows monopoly.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Bogie they know why MS has been dragged into courts over the last few years. They are just being apologists.
Shouldn't Netscape's superiority have sustained it, or was Microsoft to just not produce IE?
And let's not romanticize Netscape's browsers, they weren't that good and IE was catching up very fast and overtook it quality-wise very quickly.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're pretty naive if you think M$ won because it's browser was better. Netscape was what everyone used, pc or mac. I didn't hear of IE until version 4.5. Right around that time M$ started thier defaulting of their browser on windows and soon after mac. Buy a mac and see what browser is default. M$ is better now, but they did not beat netscape with quality, LOL. They beat them down through bullying tactics (what do you think the DOJ's case included!?) and after it achieved it's default statis it started making it's browser better than netscape which couldn't keep up.
[quote]<strong>I was just trying to say that MS has not been found guilty of simply giving good deals to others in exchange for exclusive licensing, which is what your analogy suggested. They've been found guilty of trying to beat their competition in the browser/Java market by manipulating their OS, on which the browser/Java market depends. (And doing some other stuff, which my analogy didn't include.)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, but at no stage did Microsoft "add an ingredient" to Windows which made its competitors products turn to mush. If Microsoft had deliberately added code to deliberately hinder the performance of its competitors software, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. The Court of Appeals order admits this is not the case, and discounts any accusation of "sabotage". And if Sun didn't want developers to tinker with Java, they should have expressed so explicitly in the agreement. Microsoft's implementation of the JVM ran much faster under Windows than Sun's because it was a faster implementation, not because they "broke" Sun's.
[quote]<strong>I understand that you disagree with the law. But here's another question for you - do you think all charges against MS should be dropped, despite the law? Disagreeing with the law is not an excuse to break it, is it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm disagreeing with the law, and suggesting it was implemented in a way that was grossly unfair to Microsoft, and therefore all charges should be dropped.
If anyone really cares I'll quite happily go through the Court of Appeals order and explain why every single ruling against Microsoft cannot be proved to have been anti-competitive, only pro-competitive.
Here is one good reason why Microsoft has been treated unfairly, and why the ruling should not stand:
The government, acting on behalf of Microsoft's competitors, made a decision to apply the Sherman Act so that if Microsoft could be proven to have broken anti-trust laws, it would have the right to break up the company. To allow them to use the Sherman Act, they first have to be able to prove that Microsoft are in a position to break anti-trust laws.
When considering whether or not Microsoft have a monopoly, Apple Computer, as I've stated before, was not included as a competitor. It wasn't that it was discounted in the equation because they held a meagre market share, it wasn't even included in the equation.
That automatically narrows the area in which Microsoft are deemed to have held a monopoly from "business and consumer software running on personal computers" to something very different, and entirely unlawful given the content of the evidence and final judgement. What is even more grievous is that Microsoft publish business and consumer software for the Apple platform, and accusations relating to this fact are used elsewhere in the ruling.
The government has been grossly biased in trying to form a weight of evidence against Microsoft, and therefore the ruling should not stand.
[quote]<strong>The Appeals Court ruled that MS's reason's for bundling IE with Windows did not prove any legitimate improvement for consumers and was illegal, it has also been shown that bundling is being done by MS not to connect the OS to the internet or multimedia but to blur the line between the OS and 3rd party software so that MS is able to squeeze out competition by using its existing OS control with the Windows monopoly.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A sweeping statement which covers several gross inaccuracies. I suggest you read parts II B 1. and 2. of the Court of Appeals order again.
[quote]When considering whether or not Microsoft have a monopoly, Apple Computer, as I've stated before, was not included as a competitor. It wasn't that it was discounted in the equation because they held a meagre market share, it wasn't even included in the equation.<hr></blockquote>
You know, I just realized something? If Microsoft's proposal (The one which started this whole thread) is rejected because it could harm its competitors, and Apple is included as one such party, that would completely overturn this original decision that Apple was not competition to Microsoft.
Comments
I just read some of your posts, you need to be more informed, post your email and I will send you the ruling of the Appeals Court against MS. It is point by point, about 124 or 125 pages, worth reading.
Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.
Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later ... these things don't affect consumers? Heck man, I am not claiming that MS should get screwed because they stole Apple's GUI, I am saying its because AVIs don't work, IE is not as fast as iCab or Opera yet they use Windows to keep its market share high, that all of their software uses proprietary save formats so if I use any of it [Office, IE, WMP] I can't use competitors products on those same documents without either A) 3rd party hacks [also called translators], or
So... like I said, explain.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
The Sherman Act authorizes the government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them. Before it can be invoked, you have to prove that the trusts actions were "in restraint of trade or commerce". The proof in this case is based on a collection of incidents, many of which have not even been proven, which do not constitute a "restraint of trade or commerce". I'm arguing that Microsoft's business practices were attempts to increase its own sales, not restrain those of its competitors.
[quote]<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Could you explain your adapted analogy? I can't seem to tie in with any of the arguments against Microsoft. I'm probably being stupid.
[quote]<strong>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?</strong><hr></blockquote>
The law is the same for everyone, whether they have a gun or not.
Apple shouldn't depend on 3rd party companies, so you think they should dumb developers?
IE is the best? -- no. and yes I would say that NSC6.2 is equal with IE 5.1
This is about two things: stifling competition [ILLEGAL] and harming customers [ALSO ILLEGAL] because of having monopoly status [which is LEGAL].
Office was ruled a monopoly on the Macintosh platform by the Appeals Court, again in the PDF I have of the ruling which I downloaded from some .gov site when it came out. And no matter how big or small the Mac market is now legal fact that MS used that as a thread to try and stop QuickTime on the Windows market [just for you Groverat ... THE BIG MARKET!] and that is ... whether it worked or not ... ILLEGAL.
See thing is the size of the market doesn't matter, it could be big, it could be little. Its whether you hurt competition [they did and still do] or hurt customers [they did and still do].
Reaching? Man, you are in denial, the courts have said it is a fact these things happened, MS does not get to disagree, its the way it is.
Do you see a trend yet ... its all ILLEGAL ... say it with me ... I--LL--E--G--A--L ... come on I know you can.
See the court doesn't care if you happen to like IE better, thats fine, whatever, its cool, but thing is that if I don't like IE the court does care that MS did ILLEGAL things to make it harder for me THE CONSUMER to get and use the other web browsers.
We clear yet?
<strong>Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The argument as to whether Microsoft hurts consumers is quantitive, so it's too hard to argue either way. However, clearly Microsoft is charging a price that consumers will stand. People are still buying its products. Microsoft is a moneymaking organization. You don't charge 10c for a can of Pepsi when consumers are quite happy to pay 50c or more for sugary water.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later</strong><hr></blockquote>
The QuickTime accusation is not part of the evidence given in the final order against Microsoft. The evidence also does not state that Microsoft "hurt the performance" of Java.
[Edited for ugly spelling mistake.]
[ 11-30-2001: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>
On the other notes I am now digging for the PDF of the ruling.
<strong>Office was ruled a monopoly on the Macintosh platform by the Appeals Court, again in the PDF I have of the ruling which I downloaded from some .gov site when it came out. And no matter how big or small the Mac market is now legal fact that MS used that as a thread to try and stop QuickTime on the Windows market [just for you Groverat ... THE BIG MARKET!] and that is ... whether it worked or not ... ILLEGAL.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And this is one of the most disgusting parts of the whole situation. To quote from the order:
[quote]In 1997, Apple ?s business was in steep decline, and many doubted that the company would survive much longer. Many ISVs questioned the wisdom of continuing to spend time and money developing applications for the Mac OS. Had Microsoft announced in the midst of this atmosphere that it was ceasing to develop new versions of Mac Office,a great number ISVs, customers, developers, and investors would have interpreted the announcement as Apple?s death notice.<hr></blockquote>
(ISV = Independent Software Vendor).
So let me get this straight... the court is suggesting that if Microsoft had announced it was ceasing development of Mac Office, many ISVs, customers, developers, and investors would see it as Apple's death notice, not an opportunity on their part to profit from the death one of the platforms major applications?! That supposition shows a gross failing on the part of those individuals, not Microsoft.
Also, that Mac Office was included as evidence of Microsoft's monopolistic ways, even though Apple was not even included in the equation when deciding whether Microsoft held a monopoly, is disgusting. That's a grievous abuse of the use of evidence.
Look above my post. See where it says "e-mail"? That's e-mail.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and sorry but MS has hurt consumers, they have less over head than Apple but their OS costs 2-3 times as much for a new, non-upgrade copy? Explain.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very easily explained:
Their OS is their money product, not hardware.
Apple's hardware is their money product, not software.
[quote]<strong>Oh, and the Appeals ruling states they forced JAVA to fail by hurting its performance, they crippled QuickTime performance in Win98 and later ... these things don't affect consumers?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I thought the beef with MS's treatment of Java was them changing it to where it was faster but only ran on Windows.
Never heard of the QT issue, care to enlighten me?
[quote]<strong>I am saying its because AVIs don't work,</strong><hr></blockquote>
They don't?
[quote]<strong>IE is not as fast as iCab or Opera yet they use Windows to keep its market share high,</strong><hr></blockquote>
What does this matter?
I prefer Audion to iTunes. SUE APPLE!
[quote]<strong>that all of their software uses proprietary save formats so if I use any of it [Office, IE, WMP] I can't use competitors products on those same documents without either A) 3rd party hacks [also called translators], or
Tons of apps use proprietary formats, since when is that a bad thing?
[quote]<strong>Apple shouldn't depend on 3rd party companies, so you think they should dumb developers?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Depending on 3rd parties is fine if you want, but there's no reason to fault a company for wanting to handle its business in house.
Saying other wise makes you look like a moron and a MS apologist.
Get over it all ready.
No one said MS never broke the rules, just that Nutscrape and Apple weren't involved in that process. Also, the charges they got busted on were bullshit.
<strong>Could you explain your adapted analogy? I can't seem to tie in with any of the arguments against Microsoft.</strong><hr></blockquote>I was just trying to say that MS has not been found guilty of simply giving good deals to others in exchange for exclusive licensing, which is what your analogy suggested. They've been found guilty of trying to beat their competition in the browser/Java market by manipulating their OS, on which the browser/Java market depends. (And doing some other stuff, which my analogy didn't include.)
I understand that you disagree with the law. But here's another question for you - do you think all charges against MS should be dropped, despite the law? Disagreeing with the law is not an excuse to break it, is it?
<strong>Hard to do when MS tried everything they could to make it hard to use Netscape for their default browser. Including coding the browser into the OS...</strong><hr></blockquote>
I've never understood this complaint. Netscape believed they were building a rival platform to Windows. Sure, a browser can be thought of as only an app but there's nothing wrong with thinking of it in broader terms. Integrating it into the OS seems a fairly natural progression to me. This isn't to say that MS didn't do a hack job of grafting IE onto Windows, though.
[quote]<strong>It took about 2/3 years for IE to even get close. It wasn't till 97 did MS really start making a decent browser. By then they had the mkt share, It had NOTHING to do with IE being better.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A good chunk of that market share came from AOL using IE for their software. Once they purchased Netscape, AOL could have replaced IE or issued a second version based on Netscape but they didn't. IE won the browser wars because MS kept improving their product until it was better than Netscape. Netscape tried to sit on their lead and once IE caught up to them they gave up. However good Navigator/Communicator once was, it stopped being all that good a long time ago. And Netscape has done little to nothing about it. Only now is Mozilla becoming usable and that has nothing to do with AOL/Netscape (beyond the initial decision to make the code open). I have no sympathy for Netscape.
<strong>
It's quite obvious by now that Microsoft had a reason for tying IE to the OS, it's an attempt (like it or not) to blur the line between your computer and the internet. Explorer browses your file system and the web. There is a purpose.
So I ask again, what was Microsoft supposed to do?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree it is obvious that MS had a legitimate reason to integrate IE. That doesn't mean that was the only way to do things. There was a great deal of debate within MS about this very question. The "integrationists" won.
And it is true that this helped extend MS's monopoly position but there was a time when MS wasn't at all sure about their competitive position. The whole internet thing caught Gates totally unprepared. MS responded as much out of desperation (yes, that's the correct word) as anything.
<strong>e the rules, just that Nutscrape and Apple weren't involved in that process. Also, the charges they got busted on were bullshit.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Of course they was groverat...
<strong>The Appeals Court ruled that MS's reason's for bundling IE with Windows did not prove any legitimate improvement for consumers and was illegal, it has also been shown that bundling is being done by MS not to connect the OS to the internet or multimedia but to blur the line between the OS and 3rd party software so that MS is able to squeeze out competition by using its existing OS control with the Windows monopoly.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Bogie they know why MS has been dragged into courts over the last few years. They are just being apologists.
<strong>
Shouldn't Netscape's superiority have sustained it, or was Microsoft to just not produce IE?
And let's not romanticize Netscape's browsers, they weren't that good and IE was catching up very fast and overtook it quality-wise very quickly.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're pretty naive if you think M$ won because it's browser was better. Netscape was what everyone used, pc or mac. I didn't hear of IE until version 4.5. Right around that time M$ started thier defaulting of their browser on windows and soon after mac. Buy a mac and see what browser is default. M$ is better now, but they did not beat netscape with quality, LOL. They beat them down through bullying tactics (what do you think the DOJ's case included!?) and after it achieved it's default statis it started making it's browser better than netscape which couldn't keep up.
M$ beat netscape with quality, hahahahahaha
Yes, but at no stage did Microsoft "add an ingredient" to Windows which made its competitors products turn to mush. If Microsoft had deliberately added code to deliberately hinder the performance of its competitors software, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. The Court of Appeals order admits this is not the case, and discounts any accusation of "sabotage". And if Sun didn't want developers to tinker with Java, they should have expressed so explicitly in the agreement. Microsoft's implementation of the JVM ran much faster under Windows than Sun's because it was a faster implementation, not because they "broke" Sun's.
[quote]<strong>I understand that you disagree with the law. But here's another question for you - do you think all charges against MS should be dropped, despite the law? Disagreeing with the law is not an excuse to break it, is it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm disagreeing with the law, and suggesting it was implemented in a way that was grossly unfair to Microsoft, and therefore all charges should be dropped.
If anyone really cares I'll quite happily go through the Court of Appeals order and explain why every single ruling against Microsoft cannot be proved to have been anti-competitive, only pro-competitive.
Here is one good reason why Microsoft has been treated unfairly, and why the ruling should not stand:
The government, acting on behalf of Microsoft's competitors, made a decision to apply the Sherman Act so that if Microsoft could be proven to have broken anti-trust laws, it would have the right to break up the company. To allow them to use the Sherman Act, they first have to be able to prove that Microsoft are in a position to break anti-trust laws.
When considering whether or not Microsoft have a monopoly, Apple Computer, as I've stated before, was not included as a competitor. It wasn't that it was discounted in the equation because they held a meagre market share, it wasn't even included in the equation.
That automatically narrows the area in which Microsoft are deemed to have held a monopoly from "business and consumer software running on personal computers" to something very different, and entirely unlawful given the content of the evidence and final judgement. What is even more grievous is that Microsoft publish business and consumer software for the Apple platform, and accusations relating to this fact are used elsewhere in the ruling.
The government has been grossly biased in trying to form a weight of evidence against Microsoft, and therefore the ruling should not stand.
A sweeping statement which covers several gross inaccuracies. I suggest you read parts II B 1. and 2. of the Court of Appeals order again.
[ 12-01-2001: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>
You know, I just realized something? If Microsoft's proposal (The one which started this whole thread) is rejected because it could harm its competitors, and Apple is included as one such party, that would completely overturn this original decision that Apple was not competition to Microsoft.