On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:25:55 -0500, "Upscale"
wrote:

"Tim Douglass" wrote in message

Yeah, the manufacturers probably kind of banded together, although it
is unlikely that it was any sort of formal "freeze-out", but the main
thing it sounds like to me is that he just brought a poor business
model and they couldn't justify the cost, although the interest he got
from the manufacturers indicates some were seriously considering it.

I guess it will have to remain open to debate. All I know is that I've seen
and witnessed some really wicked (what I believed to be) collusion between
companies when they think a newcomer is trying to take some of the market.
Considering the avarice that is buried in most people's souls, my tendency
is to side with the notion of Gass being shut out ~ whether he was greedy or
not.

I think my point would be that even if the companies all acted
entirely independently they would have done the same things because of
the business model they were presented with. None of them could afford
the cost and they would all recognize both the danger of competition
and the lawsuit problem so independently or in collusion they would
want to prevent the new technology from coming to the market. The fact
that there was some interest shown tells me that the engineering side
liked it, but the management side scotched it for the reasons given
above.

I also don't mean to accuse Gass of being "greedy", merely that he
presented a typical beginners plan, one that demands too much, too
quickly to be palatable to the industry. I've seen it happen the same
way before with other good ideas. The problem is that the inventor
wants to recover his R&D more quickly than the industry normally
amortizes such things. A lot of things go into it, and we will never
know the full truth, but Gass lost my sympathy (which he had up to
that point) when he went the regulatory route.

--
"We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

http://www.DouglassClan.com