Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 03:08:14 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Message-ID: <000801c17b21$a2fb4d00$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <000c01c17a7c$4de06710$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Anthony Atkielski [mailto:anthony@freebie.atkielski.com] >Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 7:25 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: chat@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) > > >Ted writes: > >> Sure there are many large companies that are >> competent and successful and didn't get that >> way by cheating. But we aren't talking about >> large successful companies in general, we are >> talking about a specific large company, Microsoft, >> which has been found guilty of anti-trust >> violations. > >Examination of the historical record I am not aware of any studies that anyone has done that make this claim. Care to cite some specific examples to support your point or are you just shooting from the hip? >reveals that Microsoft's >behavior, by and >large, is no different from that of other companies in similar positions of >market dominance. Even today, examples of similar behavior can be >found among >Microsoft's competitors, such as Sun and AOL. And these examples are? > There is nothing unique about >Microsoft, and it is neither more nor less honest and upstanding than its >competitors. > Absolute rubbish. There is something unique about Microsoft - they currently control something like 80% of desktop software for personal computers across the world. No other company has this distinction. >A poorly managed company will fail no matter what >monopolistic behaviors it undertakes, and a well managed company >will ultimately >succeed without ever resorting to such behaviors. > More rubbish. In a healthy competitive industry, a series of bad decisions will cause a company to fail. However once a company has achieved a monopoly then it can make the worst possible decisions and it will stay a monopoly, if the cost of entry into the market is extremely high. This is the case in software. The cost of entry into the desktop software market, particularly the office desktop software market, is simply too high because users take years and years to make the switch. Unlike the hardware market and unlike most industries, software never wears out. If the monopolistic software company in a market comes out with a new version that's WORSE than the prior one, users simply don't upgrade to it. While this does starve the monopolistic software company of cash somewhat, users will not replace existing software with new software from a competitor unless there's compelling need, such as a must-have feature. In the office desktop software that Microsoft is the monopoly in, most users don't have very high expectations for their software. Thus they rarely have any compelling need for new features. As a result the majority of them will tolerate poor version after poor version while they wait for the next version that's worth loading on their machine. Because of this behavior it's going to take years and years to dislodge Microsoft no matter how piss-poor their software is. Meanwhile the entire industry stagnates. > >See above. Many large companies do _not_ follow the law, but they are rarely >prosecuted for their violations. > Anthony, I find it difficult to determine what the point is exactly your trying to make because from e-mail to e-mail you issue contradictory statements that have no explanation included as to why they are contradictory. In several prior mails you made the claim: "...Some people just resent the fact that other persons/companies are more competent or successful than they are, and cannot accept the possibility that the success of the latter could be do to anything except some sort of cheating..." Now your claiming that the antitrust case against Microsoft is unusual because all of the other large companies cheat the same as they do. You can't have it both ways. Either cheating is endemic and Microsoft got to where they are because they cheated like everyone else does, or cheating is an aberration and the antitrust lawsuit proves that Microsoft is run by criminals. >It is abundantly >clear to even (and perhaps esepcially) Microsoft's competitors that >the success >of MS is almost entirely the consequence of sound business decisions, not >illegal or unethical maneuvering. > Once Microsoft attained monopoly status, all it's illegal and unethical manuevering is, as you say, unlikely to make much difference. So yes, most people would agree that Microsoft is maintaining it's monopoly by good or at least indifferent business decisions. But maintaining that monopoly and getting to that state are two very different things. Your confusing the continuing success of Microsoft with the success they had of reaching a monopoly status. Unethincal and illegal things that Microsoft did to attain that monopoly status were the main reason they got to that stuatus. It may not make any difference that Microsoft stole DOS today, because their continued existence is due to them being a monopoly, not because they hold the source code to DOS. But it did make a difference to get them to that position a long time ago. >> Microsoft was found guilty of breaking the law, >> they are beyond cheaters, they are criminals. > >No more so than any other large company. Indeed, the list of companies in >Microsoft's position that have similarly violated the law is quite >long. While >this hardly justifies Microsoft's own violations, it does make it clear that >they were not particularly exceptional, and so if one criticizes Microsoft on >the basis of those violations, one should also criticize all other companies >engaging in similar tactics. > And when did I say that I don't? > >Intel has been the subject of many similar actions ... just ask >Cyrix and AMD, >or the FTC. The FTC action was not a statement that Intel is a monopoly but rather that Intel cannot withhold technical specs of it's products as a way of demanding customers license back patents to it. These two cases are very different from each other. >Bill Gates made the mistake of spending too much time in the public eye, >attracting the envious regard of competitors and others whose own lack of >success seemed all the more distressing in light of the wealth and >achievement >of Microsoft and its founder. > Bill Gates spent his time in the public eye talking about Windows. Thus his "time in the public eye" was nothing more than advertising. I don't deny that Microsoft's competitors are envious of it's advertising (after all, Microsoft's media manipulation basically gives them free advertising) but the Justice Department isn't a competitor. >There have been many, many other companies that have gone through this. Most >such actions do not capture the media's sensationalistic attention, but that >does not mean that they are less important. AT&T, IBM, and Standard Oil have >been among the more visible targets of antitrust actions in the past. > >> If the statement that Microsoft cheated to get >> where they were was nothing more than a claim, then >> no evidence would have existed to convict them. > >And that is precisely the case. They were not convicted of any such >thing. The >Court found specific violations of the Sherman act in relation to >the placement >of Microsoft software on OEM machines, and with respect to the >installation of >Microsoft's browser. It did not find that Microsoft attained the position it >holds today through any illegal actions, although it speculates that--in the >specific case of browser dominance--Microsoft's violations _may_ have had an >influence on the outcome of things. > You can't be convicted unless your charged, and Microsoft wasn't charged with cheating to get where they were. But most of the individuals and companies that are convicted of crimes have a pattern of prior criminal behavior, although the behavior may not have got them "caught" previously. To argue that Microsoft was completely ethical throughout it's history, as you are doing, then once day decided to break the law and got caught, is extremely naieve. >However, my own opinion, which may well be better informed than that of the >Court, is that Netscape was so poorly managed, and wrote such poor software, >that it was doomed from the beginning. The company was built on >hype. It had >the first viable browser on the market, but that's the only reason >anyone used >it--once a better browser was available (and MSIE was a better >browser from 3.x >forward), it had nothing but inertia to keep it in business. Untrue. Corporations were required by the Netscape license to pay a fee to Netscape for the browser installs. Once Microsoft started releasing IE in a usable form, it came with a license that was free for corporate and personal use. Thus when given a choce between a free Microsoft-supplied browser, and a for-fee Netscape browser, everyone used the Microsoft one. Product dumping, in effect. >> They didn't lose some sort of popularity contest >> here - they lost a legal court case, a loss that >> even survived an appeal by them, in a court where >> they had unbelievable opportunity to disprove the >> claims, during a trial that was conducted according to >> defined and fair rules. > >You need to read the actual documents in question. You may be surprised. > I have read the court transcripts and it's shocking that Microsoft actually believed that the court would swallow some of the things they said during the trial. In fact the most surprising thing about the entire trial was the enormous level of disrespect that Microsoft showed to the court. You would think that they had more brains than that. They should have been crawling on their knees begging for leiency - once they got it and the case was closed then they could run around and brag about how stupid the trial was. But to do that beforehand was the ultimate in stupidity. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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