On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 12:43:05 -0700, "Ted Mittelstaedt"
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>"DTJ" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 12:52:02 GMT, 'nuther Bob
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >>Here is where I take issue. I used to support MS no matter what. No
>> >>longer. However, the companies that claim MS is unfair are
>> >>complaining because MS is better at producing competitive products.
>> >>There is no monopoly, certainly no illegal one, unless you use your
>> >>clout in the market to reduce competition AND THEN use the reduced
>> >>competition to increase profits. >MS has never done this.
>> >
>> >I'm not talking about those complaints. MS ordered hardware vendors
>> >to sell their OS, and only their OS, on their systems. If you want(ed)
>> >to sell Windows on a PC you had to agree to install only windows.
>> >That was clearly illegal under US law. Also, although not quite as
>>
>> Not quite. Microsoft had agreements that required the vendor to pay
>> for Windows whether they installed it or not. Yes it was found to be
>> illegal. No, it was not clearly so.
>>
>
>I hope you can stand another "no, not exactly"
Sure, since you only clarified my point.
>Those agreements of Microsoft ONLY applied if you were a PC manufacturer
>that was purchasing "OEM" licenses at the cheap rate, of course. If you
>were
>including discounted "retail" licenses you could do what you want.
>
>Considering that the OEM license are about $12-20 and the retail licenses
>(in quantity) are about $50, and the PC manufacturers were tacking on about
>$100
>extra for the license, I don't really feel that sympathetic to them.
>
>> Let's assume a fair price for Windows to a vendor is $50, and the
>> vendor sells 100 copies a year. They also sell 10 systems with Linux.
>> That comes out to $45.45 per system, or $50 per Windows system. If
>> Microsoft sells it to that vendor under the agreement that it is based
>> on systems sold (regardless of OS) for $40, the vendor wins. That is
>> not unfair or illegal, no matter what the sleeping judge found.
>>
>
>This is true if that is what was happening. But was WAS happening is that
>vendors (like Dell) that had a corporate policy of NEVER selling ANY
>systems with Linux preloaded, they got the Windows copies at the
>$40 price. Vendors like IBM/Compaq/HP that sold a few Linux preloaded
>systems got the Windows copies at $50.
This is misleading. Dell sells far more systems than IBM could ever
hope to sell, so IBM should pay more.
>Microsoft was very arbitrary on the costs to the OEM of Windows. It
>was not based on volume or anything like that, it was polically based. It
>was no different than if a Negro-owned business that sold 500 tractors
>a year had to pay $10,000 per tractor, (less shipping) while a White-owned
>business
>that sold 50 tractors per year only had to pay $7,000 per tractor (less
>shipping) for
>the same tractor.
The same as every other company. Pricing is based on the relationship
between the customer and the sales person, not on volume. If the
customer can negotiate better, they get a better price.
This is not an argument to suggest that IF someone bases price on race
that would be acceptable, but it is an argument that companies are
legally able to set pricing based on the perceived value of their
customer.
>> >crystal clear, is that MS as a vendor of both the application and
>> >OS was keeping things secret about the OS that they were taking
>> >advantage of in their applications - that is also illegal. The
>> >list goes on, those are two major issues.
>>
>> This is so bull**** though. It is impossible to "keep things secret"
>> in Windows. Any programmer with even a few days experience should
>> know how to view the exported functions in a DLL. It is simple to
>> look at what DLLs are being loaded. Since the Windows OS is mainly
>> DLLS, there is no possibility for MS to "hide" functions from anyone.
>>
>
>Once again this is a simplification of the issues.
>
>Yes it is not possible to "hide" functions. The problem is, that Microsoft
>has
>no responsibility to maintain consistency with functions that are
>undocumented.
Agreed.
>So what was happening is that Microsoft Office would make use of an
>undocumented function, and a competitor like WordPerfect would make use of
>the same
>function. Then Microsoft would plan on changing that function in the next
>version of Windows, and they would inform their MS Office development
>team. So that team would stop or change using that function and release a
>new version
>of Office, as well as patches for the old versions of Office that mitigated
>the
>change in the function.. Wordperfect would not of course be informed of the
>pending
>change, and so then when the next version of Windows was released,
>the new version of Wordperfect would crash on it, while the new version of
>MS Office
>wouldn't, and most people would have patched their old versions of Office.
>And if people were doing in-place upgrades of Windows, the new version of
>Windows would search their hard drive for the old version of MS Office
>during installation and patch it if it wasn't patched.
I am not sure if you really understand how Windows works. Your
explanation is inaccurate. Maybe you, like me, do not wish to take
the time to explain in detail what you are saying. For example, you
suggest that people are patching their old versions, which would make
the same thing available to the new competitive product. So what is
the problem. They took the time to discover the function, they should
test it.
>> Improvements? It sucks. Ever try to network XP with 98 where one
>> system has NetBeui installed? Can't do it! MS likes to say NetBeui
>> is not supported. So? It didn't magically stop working - until MS
>> MADE XP networking NOT WORK when one system has NetBeui and another
>> does not.
>>
>
>Very little supports NetBIOS Extended User Interface (NetBEUI) these
>days other than Windows and old IBM Lan Manager/OS2. The few
>networking devices like print servers are dropping support for it, and
>why not? NetBEUI isn't routable anyway.
Correct, but MS making it NOT WORK is bull****.
>Windows 98SE has TCP/IP in it and supports Automatic IP Number Assignment
>(ie: negotiating IP numbers when a DHCP server is not present) as does
>XP, so this is not a serious problem. While it's facinating to me that
>they dropped support in XP as I didn't know that, I rather see this as an
>improvement. I've seen many corporate networks with unauthorized
>filesharing
>going on from people using NetBEUI that has caused problems for the
>system administrators.
Yes, but for a small business network, NetBeui is superior to TCP/IP,
as it is much faster. TCP/IP is overkill for less than 10 systems,
and yes, not everybody has or needs Internet access.
>> Interesting point, but Netscape was trying to force their standards on
>> the Internet the same way. Java Script was not invented by Sun, but
>> by Netscape. Ever heard of JSS? Netscape doesn't follow W3C
>> standards any better than MS.
>>
>> Every company tries to get an advantage. There is nothing illegal
>> there. It becomes illegal when you try to prevent your competition
>> from succeeding by designing your product to prevent theirs from
>> working. To my knowledge, that has never been proved.
>
>It also becomes illegal when you design your product to not work
>unless the customer ALSO buys all the REST of his products from
>you.
Sure, but I don't believe that happened.
>> >WHen it comes to applications,
>> >I've yet to see any real "improvements" in MS Office, Front Page,
>> >etc, in the last several releases. The only real changes were in
>> >the way the products integrate with each other and the Internet.
>> >That's all part of the MS OD-Application-Internet power grab.
>>
>> Because other companies stopped innovating also, so they have less
>> reason to do so. Also, possibly because there is nothing more Office
>> can do, but ...
>>
>
>Many would say there's nothing more that Windows can do either,
>and question why upgrade at all, when your Win98/Win2K/Office 97/
>Office 2K setups all work fine, and do what the users want to do.
Like me!
>> Wait. Microsoft had a contract that allowed them to add extensions.
>> Many documents from Sun's president proved this - he was upset that
>> Sun agreed to let them.
>>
>> The COURT ruled that MS had to remove Java support. It did not say
>> they had to replace it with Sun's version until it realized the error
>> it made.
>>
>
>Most of this of course is a moot issue since there's no real proof that Java
>does anything any better than many of the other 4GL scripting languages.
>And worse, since it ties you to the browser (if your developing "thin
>client"
>apps) there's a movement to push all the scripting back onto the server
>(whether it's Java or something else) and only have the browsers displaying
>pure HTML. Then it doesen't tie your app to specific web browser versions.
I have never been a fan of Java. Over hyped, under performing. It is
not cross platform. The VM is cross platform, but you could write a
VM for C++, VB, Fortran, ADA or any other language. I hate when
companies lie.
>> I do
>> agree that it is an issue, I just don't agree that MS is any worse
>> than Sun, Netscape or AOL.
>
>Then your not in accordance with current US law. The law says that
>monopolies are illegal, and Microsoft is a monopoly by any reasonable
>definition, and also now legally. So legally they are worse than those
>other companies since none of them have been ruled a monopoly.
Personally, I don't believe they are a monopoly. The judge slept
throughout he trial, so any findings of fact he made are irrelevant.
He was at best a moron, and at worst a paid shill for the competition.
Second, there is competition, and always has been. The competition
has always sucked, until Linux. Even that is a problem because most
people are not capable of installing Linux. Still, difficulty of use
does not make MS a monopoly.
However, I see why some people think they are. I just disagree.
>> >You need to look at the global issues and goals of MS to understand
>> >how these "little" issues add up to the big picture of squashing
>> >the competition through any means, legal or illegal.
>>
>> Agreed, and if it is illegal it must be stopped and punished, WIHTOUT
>> punishing the consumer.
>
>The current legal notion and not just in the US but in most developed
>countries, is that monopolies punish the consumer by their very existence.
>Microsoft did in fact try a rather novel approach to fighting the anti-trust
>trial by claiming that the plantiffs needed to show that this was true, and
>moreover that there was evidence that their practices did in fact, harm
>the consumer. However ultimately they did lose the war, because the
>plantiffs basically stated (properly IMHO) that this wasn't the issue.
>Where Microsoft's arguments did in fact matter was during the penalty
>phase of the trial. Since there really wasn't enough evidence that
>Microsoft
>was in fact harming consumers, they escaped without the judge ordering
>the company to be split up.
>However, this issue isn't going away, and I predict within another 10 years
>that we are going to see another anti-trust trial get fired up again,
>because
>I don't see strong enough market trends to see Microsoft's claim on the
>North American software market to be reduced to a non-monopoly
>level. Until that happens, Microsoft is going to be vulnerable to another
>anti-trust trial. All it would take is a change in administration in the
>White House and you would see this start up all over again. And the
>next time it does, they won't get away with a mere slap on the wrist,
>because Justice will argue that they've been warned once already, and
>had plenty of time to change their market practices so their competitors
>could gain a healthy market share.
>
>Ted
>
>PS and for those spoilsports that want to know what all this has to do with
>cars, you might ask yourself why are the automakers allowed to screw over
>the repair shops by not standardizing on a single kind of engine computer
>diagnostic interface? They are adding more and more software to cars
>every year, and many of the same issues (software bloat, etc) are going to
>become increasingly important. If you keep an eye on what is going on
>in PC software, you may get a jump on what could happen to
>engine computer software in the future.
How true. Most repair shops, including dealers, that I have used,
have no clue how to use the diagnostic software. When we bought my
wife's new car, I had to help the repair guy figure out what to do.
