On 10/16/2011 5:45 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
On 10/16/2011 1:45 PM, Jack wrote:
On 10/16/2011 1:38 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Most monopolies are temporary.

Perhaps, depending on your definition of temporary. Microsoft has been
at it of a quarter century. Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T had to be broken
up by the courts. The reason monopolies like MS are bad is by
definition, competition is excluded via control of the market. When
competition is stifled by a monopoly, progress stops, quality
stagnates and people are forced to pay what the monopoly says they
will pay. MS is a perfect example of this, providing crap at a 30%
mark up to over 90% of the market.

Just when do you think this "temporary" control will end?

Now let us inspect Reality to demonstrate why this is complete nonsense.

Well, you certainly haven't demonstrated with this half baked reply.
Lets "inspect" to see why you are off base.

At the beginning of the desktop/PC revolution, there were two significant
OS players: Apple and Radio Shack (there were something like a half dozen
TRS-DOS variants, the best of which was LDOS).

These were meaningless. When IBM decided to enter the PC/DT market, who
they picked to provide the OS determined who would ride the DC/PC
revolution. The only thing stopping them from doing it themselves was
fear of another anti-trust suit. They picked Gates, not because he had
an OS to sell, but because the CEO or President of IBM, I don't recall
which, was friends with Gates mother. Gates had to go out and find a
workable OS, and he bought DOS from Patterson, for $100 grand. Gates
eventually hired Patterson, because Gates and friends couldn't figure
out how DOS even worked, and seems they never did, from the garbage they
put out. Hard to imagine a company like IBM signing a contract with
someone that had nothing to sell, but that's exactly what they did.

Then IBM entered the market
and Microsoft came with them, for the first time producing an OS.

Until IBM entered the market, the market was bare.

Now let's fast forward.

Lets not. From the beginning, there was little competition, since IBM,
for whatever reason, chose MS. That meant that if you wanted to write
software, sell software, or have anything to do with PC's, you had to go
with MS because that was the platform IBM used. Those that attempted to
get a foot in the door of any retail outlet was quickly stomped on by MS
threatening the retailer to either withdraw their license to sell MS or
with super high price for the product. Since IBM had set the stage for
MS, if a retailer ignored MS threats, they were doomed, so they didn't,
and no "feet" got in the door. All other products were like farts in
the wind, had no chance, mattered not if they were good, bad or
indifferent. They eventually all went away, which is exactly what
monopolies do to the competition. Even if you think you know more than
judge Sporkin, who listened to years of testimony laying out how MS
violated anti-trust laws, and found them super guilty of violating anti
trust laws, you cannot deny that controlling over 90% of the DT market
is a monopoly. Well you can, but then you would be spouting nonsense.

There are dozens of OS variants. Besides MacOS
(a FreeBSD/MACH derivative) and Windows, there are a bunch of different
Linux distros, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeDOS, at least one Windows
clone OS (whose name I cannot recall). In the mobile device space,
Microsoft's presence is too small to matter with Apple IOS and Android
(another Linux derivative) splitting the market between them. Microsoft
has no presence to speak of in the realtime/embedded space. They
are not a force in supercomputer or high-availability clustering. They
do not have a place in the multi-petabyte database space.

No DT product could get a foot in the door "in the early days" of the DT
PC. MS made sure of it, and it was proven in court after the fact in 1995.

But you think they're a "monopoly". You are seriously disconnected from
the current state of this business. It is a simple, demonstrable, and
completely rational observation that Microsoft dominates only the desktop,

No **** Dick Tracy. I never said they dominated the mainframe market,
or the cell phone market, or the meat market. They dominate over 90% of
the DT market, they have a lousy product that is only "good enough"
because the average consumer has little choice when shopping the DT market.

and then only so long as they provide a good value. More and more people
are turning to portable devices like high function phones and tablets -
a space where Microsoft has almost NO presence.

Microsoft has a monopoly on the PC DT market. We'll see how the cell
phone market pans out.

This, sir, is not a monopoly.

Microsoft has over a 90% market share in the DT PC market. You can say
that's not a monopoly all day long, you will be wrong.

This is a market with more product, more players, and more
competition than has ever existed since the dawn of commercial
computing. The fact that Microsoft knows how to prosper and maintain
high margins in this environment is to their credit.

Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T also knew how to prosper but they didn't make
30% profit. They were broken up because they had monopolies and either
were not as corrupt as MS or Government was not as corrupt in their day,
or some combination of both.

P.S. Microsoft isn't as bulletproof as you seem to think. Go look at their
stock performance over the last decade.

Get real. Their profit margin has always been super high, what one would
expect from a monopoly. They have been "bulletproof" for around 25
years, what happens in the future is a guess, the past is undeniable.
They were able to maintain this control by stopping retailers from
selling competing products and by changing the environment so software,
often even their own, would not work between upgrades. This was
deliberate to control the market, and it worked.

P.P.S. The only "predatory monopoly" that exists in our nation is the
government and that's because they get to use force to keep themselves in power.
Fortunately - for the most part - that use of force is narrowly bounded
by rule of law.

Unfortunately, the "rule of law" went out the window when MS got busted
for anti-trust violations and all they got was a slap on the hands, and
a dire need to contribute vast donations to those in charge of the "rule
of law". The current regime is even worse, and thinks the "rule of law"
is for you, not them.

--
Jack
Add Life to your Days not Days to your Life.
http://jbstein.com