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choice

Although I am not an apologist, I will take the bait.

Even Judge Jackson found that MS had obtained their monopoly legally. Consumer choice played a large part in this. The problem lies in what they did once they had that monopoly to try to maintain it.

All companies are anti-competitive and predatory as much as they can be; I am certainly not in the business of making life easy on my competitors or making it easier for them to compete with me. I won't be crying my eyes out tonight if any of them go out of business, and I am free to use any legal means to help them do so. This is perfectly natural and legal until, as with MS, you have obtained monopoly-like dominance which you abuse. Which they did. Again, looking at Jackson's initial findings, he did not find that they obtained their monopoly illegally, so there was nothing wrong with their actions up until that point, even if their competitors or all the "ethical judges" out there don't like certain aspects of it. All of their issues lie in what they did after that point, and they've made a lot of serious screwups and deserve the heat they are getting.

How many days in a row is ZDNet going to run this same exact story? While it is certainly relevant to the MN case and says a lot about their practices and attitudes at the time (7 years ago), it would be much more interesting to know the numbers for today. A lot has changed since then, due to government settlements, other lost court cases, and significant changes in the market overall.

MS faces real competition and is losing market share, and is finally having to invest real dollars in fixing things to make a better product that can compete rather than just slapping a new UI on an old OS and making lots of money off that "new" version. I'd imagine if this email were written today or next year, it would be mighty different. And Buffet would stay even farther away than he did back then.

Posted by: pschroeder@...   Posted on: 03/19/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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