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Howard,
> You think it's funny that the government is stepping in and
> forcing it's will into the free market??????
You think the PC arena is a free market?????
No one can argue that MSFT controls the vast majority of desktops.
And that's allowed, but *only* if it happens because of great
products and shrewd marketing. But the DOJ determined, and I think
MSFT amply demonstrated via their many faux pas on the stand, that
they did NOT get to their current position solely because of their
great products. They threw their weight around in illegal ways and
crushed any upstart who dared to oppose them.
> A true monopoly could charge whatever they want because of
> inelastic demand.
And in fact, one of the points in the judge's findings was that they
did EXACTLY that. When W98 came out, MS continued charging basically
the same price for W95. The judge said that in a real supply/demand
marketplace, the value of the old OS would drop when the new one came
out.
No, they don't charge $10,000 for W95. They're not that stupid. But
they can (and do) charge whatever they want, because there is no
capable competitor to provide price pressure in a free market.
> What if MSFT hadn't controlled the OS market and there were 5 or
> more OS in the beginning each with equal market share of pc's OS?
> I beleive without MSFT's dominance we would be years behind where
> we are now.
There's no doubt that the unified OS environment of the 90's made it
easier to proliferate PC's. However, I've always contended that MS
actually set back the practice of computing, and thus the products
available to the consumer, by at least 10 years. They were wildly
successful, due to being in the right place in the right time *and*
due to brilliant and ruthless marketing. (Emphatically NOT due to
having the best product, at least not until they'd grown so big that
they smothered all competitors. Recall that Apple released the Mac
environment back in 1984, long before Microsoft ever heard of windows-
based desktops. Surely you don't think bare DOS was a better product
than the Mac?) Thus, since MS was so successful, everyone figures
the "right" way to do it is the Microsoft way.
But if you look at the execrable design of their products, the
inconsistent interfaces, the bloated software, etc, you start to see
that the MSFT way does not include developing excellent and highly
maintainable software. Recent books have revealed that MSFT
executives, from Bill on down, laugh at the concept of designing or
documenting code. They boldly state that there is only one document:
the code itself. Anyone who has done any serious software
development (outside of Redmond) can tell you that's a recipe for
disaster. And that's why you see so many bug-ridden releases and
security fiascoes in MSFT products. If you've ever looked deeply
into the Windows code and interfaces, you'd know what I mean. It's
revolting, IMHO.
MSFT's philosophy is "crank out code." Don't bother with careful
design to make sure your products work together well, or are even
self-consistent. (E.g.: I just did a large project with PowerPoint.
I discovered there are at least 4 different ways to attach sound
files to a slide in PPT. All of them are different, all of them have
inconsistent properties, and none of them address the whole problem.
That's an absurd situation, and it's the clear result of a hacked-
together product.) Unfortunately that results in hard-to-use and
hard-to-maintain products, but that's the way MSFT does it.
So an entire generation of programmers has grown up thinking that
"hack it out" is the way to develop large systems. The discipline of
software engineering was just starting to stamp out that mindset in
the late 70's and 80's, but MSFT has put us back to the philosophies
and practices of the 60's.
Meanwhile, there were very capable OS's back in the 70's and 80's
that did just about everything Windows does now, but with about 1% of
the RAM and disk requirements. The Amiga is a great example of a
very capable environment that drew a huge and loyal following, but
just didn't have the marketing muscle of the MS Machine. Imagine
where we could be now if one or more of those environments had been
able to take root and grow. Even if MS still dominated the
marketplace, imagine what they would have produced by now if they had
somebody besides Apple to provide them with ideas and competitive
pressure.
> Bill Gates "ruthless greed" should be applauded not punished but
> if it is to be punished it should be by the free markets, not
> Janet Reno's hinchman.
I'm all for ruthless greed. :-) But if something is going to be
punished by the free markets, then you have to HAVE free markets.
And the free market has not been in force in the PC arena for many
years.
Gary
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