"John Doe" wrote in message ...
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:31:15 GMT

"BillW50" wrote:
"John Doe" wrote in message

...
when Microsoft prohibited IBM from including IBM's own Lotus
SmartSuite on IBM's computers. Microsoft used Windows to force
IBM's compliance.

So?

There.

Microsoft had to do many things they didn't want to because IBM
forced them to do so. Steve Ballmer called it riding the bear. But
times have changed and IBM got a taste of their own medicine. And
I believe this is only fair. Why don't you?

That depends on what you're referring to. If you're referring to my
example of Microsoft using Windows to prevent competition with
Microsoft's applications, I believe that stifles innovation in the
applications software market. I really couldn't care less about the
politics. I don't care which team you are rooting for.

How did Microsoft prevent competition? As the end user had no
problems installing Lotus SmartSuite if they wanted to. So no
problems there. And MS Office is not free anyway, again no problems
there.

And there has been awhile now, Sun's OpenOffice which can be had for
free! Claims to open MS Office files and all. If it were any good,
it would wipe out MS Office off of the map for sure. But the truth
is, it ain't as good. Thus it still isn't a threat to MS.

You somehow believe MS stifles competition. While I believe just the
opposite. As at anytime, anybody can come along and actually do
something better than Microsoft. And often it does happen in niche
areas of Windows and it has made them (not MS) rich. This has been
great for competition. Because when something comes out better, MS
plays catch up to try to match or exceed their competition.

I actually believe Windows is the de facto desktop today because of
competition. As there were other competitors for a GUI on top of DOS
like GEM and GEOS. And they were doing well until Apple sued
Microsoft for the look and feel. And MS quickly improved Windows to
be as good and sometimes better than the competition. In this case,
in all of them (GEM, GEOS, and the Mac).

So don't tell me that Microsoft stifles competition. Because that
just ain't so! Although I would agree that Microsoft has enough
resources to usually come out on top. Maybe that is what you really
have a problem with.


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0