[CLUE-Talk] Legal breaking of the MS monopoly WAS: Re: [CLUE-Tech] HP laptop

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 01-16 19:08, Ed Hill wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-01-16 at 18:25, Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> > 
> > Would you mind doing this? 
> 
> No problem.  Here are some recent stories on the topic:
> 
<snip>

Wow. A lot of reading. Thanks. :)

> > I only ask because I must be missing something here - isn't this something
> > for the free market to settle? If you like Microsoft, buy and use Microsoft.
> > If you don't, use an alternative. Where is the M$ tax being paid if you are
> > buying from a Linux-friendly vendor, or if you are constructing your own
> > machine? 
> 
> Doesn't sound like you're missing much.  If you believe that monopoly
> problems should be sorted out by the market, then don't ask the
> government to codify or enforce antitrust laws.  Ok, thats a consistent
> view.  It discounts plenty of trade law currently on the books, but its
> still a view to which you are entitled.

Okay, I'm sure you're right there - my view is obviously a view of how I
think things should be, not the lawyerly reality.  The usual IANAL caveat
applies here. :)

> While I also have strong libertarian-leanings, I do think there are
> circumstances which the law (and government) should try to prevent.  And
> I think the situation with Microsoft warrants intervention.  In my
> opinion, Microsoft has gone too far in their efforts to force out
> competition and be the only option in many markets.  As the trial
> demonstrated, they clearly broke existing antitrust laws.  And I don't
> think the situation (eg. your mention of broadband/ISPs) is getting any
> better under market forces alone.

I agree that M$ has danced the line of just being a strong market leader and
being a monopoly a little too close to the side of a monopoly. I guess I'm
wondering how much and how they should be punished, if at all, though. I
mean really, let's look at the cost of the NT workstation line: it has
hovered around $200 since 3.51, to my knowledge...so NT 3.51, NT 4, NT 5
(W2K) and now XP were all priced about the same. That's a period of time of
at least eight years, right? If they were really a monopoly, they could have
charged more for each release, if not at least to match inflation rates,
right? Keeping the price locked at $200 over eight years doesn't seem like
the behavior of a monopoly. Just playing devil's advocate.

On the other hand, a near-monopoly like my broadband provider (AT&T) thought
nothing of jacking up prices $6 a month, and I only had them for two and a
half years. It's been a while since I've checked, but when I did, there was
no DSL in my neighborhood, so I had absolutely no recourse (except for
dial-up which is not really an option).

> Thus, I would like to see the courts (1) appropriately punish Microsoft
> for flaunting existing laws, and (2) make it easier for competitors to
> enter and compete in markets that Microsoft has come to dominate.

The first article you gave mentioned the browser wars. I understand that 
the ruling instructed M$ not to continue to bundle their free (and at the
time, absolutely horrible) browser in their OS, so maybe they should be
retroactively fined for that. But again, I fail to see why this 
ruling happened in the first place. If we take the car analogy mentioned
earlier, if Ford "bundles" a car with a nice radio for "free", how does that
shut out any third-party radio manufacturers and retailers? In that case,
the consumer also has to take extra steps to change out the default radio
for a custom one. 

And if we look at the browser market today, yes, IE has a lot of market
share, but there is still Lynx, Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, Galeon, etc, so I
don't see how the consumer is harmed, and I thought that was the thrust of
antitrust laws - the well-being of the consumer, not the competing
companies. All that is moot, of course, if the ruling is not overturned - M$
should be punished for it, regardless.

In another market where they are smashing the competition - Visual Basic.
They are crushing nearly everyone, especially on their OS, with this,
probably eating into their VC++ mindshare, too. But there still are choices,
still: Delphi, for one. PowerBuilder for another. And as far I know these
are companies that are still relatively healthy. I can name one thing M$ did
here that was monopoly-like, but it resulted in developers jumping to Delphi
(almost instantly, too!), in this instance: VB suddenly dropped 16-bit
platform support from 4 to 5, or from 5 to 6. Of course, since VB is
Windows-only, once you move to another OS, it's not even in the picture.

Broadband where you have no option of another ISP seems pretty cut and
dried, but IMHO, software is a little tougher to plead a case. Undoubtedly,
there are arguments for both sides, and for now, I'm sitting on the fence.

I guess I just fear government action in such a nebulous and sticky
situation, especially after coming on the heels of such a debacle like the
tobacco settlement. The cure might be worse than the disease, especially
since the government is the Final and Ultimate Monopoly. As long as the
government action has severe and absolute restrictions placed on its options
in this case, I'd be most of the way to agreeing with such a suit. I've seen
pundits as far back as 1997 saying this would be a great way to launch a
Software Department, which I find repugnant. I fear that many bureaucrats
have too many plans for the private sector as it is...we have only to look
at history to know that any government department or agency will grow
indefinitely: apparently now the EPA is carrying guns. I can only ask
"Why?". 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at attbi.com Yahoo:seanleblancathome 
ICQ:138565743 MSN:seanleblancathome AIM:sleblancathome 
He's a great writer. If I didn't think so I wouldn't have tried to kill him... 
I was the champ and when I read his stuff I knew he had something. So I 
dropped a heavy glass skylight on his head at a drinking party. But you can't 
kill the guy. He's not human. 
-F. Scott Fitzgerald on Ernest Hemingway