What's behind Microsoft's Office moves?

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Good points, but is it true?

Like yourself, I have watched the growth of Linux as an alternative OS. I fail completely though to see how anti-trust actions had a thing to do with it.

As I look through the list of "remedies" I see nothing there I would attribute as a factor in Linux's growth. The big OEMS did NOT rush out and start selling Linux boxes. In fact I would venture to say the opposite may in fact be true. (Still open to interpretation over the next few years.)

If we look at the meat of this article, it plainly has little or nothing to do with anti-trust, and has everything to do with MS seeing a competitive challenge and reacting to it. That is what any well ran for-profit company MUST do.

The fact is, I see nothing about Office being an issue for anti-trust. It is not "bundled" with anything unless you order and pay for it from the OEM. MS doesn't price it so low that it puts everyone out of business. (Some would claim it's too high priced.)

What they have done is create a suite of applications that are so function and feature rich the vast majority have accepted it and willingly paid for it. As many point out, there isn't a huge difference to the individual user (corporate users will see it differently) between say Office 2000 and Office 2003, and yet people buy more copies of MS Office in one day than all the competition put together sells in a year. (Maybe two or three years.)

In truth, considering the years it was in court, the results handed out by the courts, and their over all effect on the landscape, I'd say the anti-trust suit was a waste of time and tax payer dollars. The real factors that have changed MS's directions seems to be old fashioned competition in the market place and that is exactly as it should be...

Posted by: No_Ax_to_Grind   Posted on: 12/01/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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