From: discar@nosc.mil (Joe Discar)
Subject: Re: ftc and ms
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 21:30:06 GMT

In article <BzMLLx.JtD@news.iastate.edu> TW.FY4@isumvs.iastate.edu (Timothy I Miller) writes:
>
>     A return, yes.  Binding contracts which allow no other
>alternatives, no.  MS has reaped quite a little reward for writing
>DOS, and they probably deserve at least most of it.  In the past, it
>wasn't as big of a deal, as MS didn't have contracts which hampered
>the ability of competitors to do business, and they weren't
>competing as heavily in the applications market.  Now, though, MS
>has practically forced (yes *forced*) vendors to either load MS-DOS
>on all machines, or only have access to MS-DOS at a more expensive
>price.  This is what's unfair. 

Ah, but the vendors aren't forced to stick with the contract.  The agreement
generally says "we will supply product X at a cost of D only under these
terms."  The vendors, at any time, can say "well, we don't want to do this..."
and simply pay more money for MS-DOS (later in your post, you allude to this).

Is it Microsoft's fault that vendors wish to abide by the terms?  No.  The
vendors want to do this because abiding by the terms and geting a lower
price for DOS and Windows is far more profitable than not abiding by the
terms: regardless of what a few people think, MOST people WANT DOS and
Windows.  Indeed, unbundling DOS and Windows from a system could actually
INCREASE the cost of the system (as volume sales go down).

If you want, blame the Vendors for abiding by the agreement... or better yet,
blame the computer market.  And remember that it takes two parties to make
an agreement in the first place.




>MS knows that MS-DOS is what would
>probably be loaded anyway, but instead they want to force the OS on
>to the minority of people who would rather have another OS.  

They don't "force" the OS on anybody.  As far as I know, the hard disk is
read/write--and the end user could quite easily reformat the drive and put
another OS in DOS's place.  Vendors would be quite willing to install another
DOS on the machine, even--what they may not do is lower the price of
the system even though you decide not to buy DOS or Windows... but this is
the vendor's choice, and includes the decision that the price of the 
system is fixed (i.e., the prediction is that 100 systems will be sold at
a cost of X... therefore the system price should be X*100*margin).

Yes, I know that they could simply "make an exception..." and some (few)
vendors do because the forecast for the cost of the system takes into
account volume discounts from distributors and other incentives.

But regardless of this, the end user OWNs the computer.  Microsoft (to
my knowledge) does not have cameras that follow people around and tattle-tales
when they uninstall DOS from the system; the operating system is hardly
"forced" onto the buyer.  "Installed" yes, "Forced" no.

>This
>is what is hampering competition.  If MS was secure enough to feel
>like DOS is a worthwhile OS, they would let people choose it,
>instead of forcing it on people.

If automobile manufacturers felt secure enough about their cars, they 
wouldn't have to advertise it.  If soda pop manufacturers felt secure
about their product, they wouldn't have to pay extra for a cap fee at
the stores.  If hardware manufacturers felt secure enough about their
peripherals, they wouldn't need to have volume incentive plans.

So what?  MS's agreement is a marketing ploy.  Nothing more or nothing
less.  Vendors don't NEED to install DOS on their machines--but they
find it to their best interest (and the interest of MOST of their
buyers) to do so.

I grant that if you wanted to make a statement, simply tell a vendor
that you're not going to buy from him/her because you don't want to 
have product X installed... and you're willing to pay more money at
another vendor to get what you want (or don't want).  If enough people
do that, no vendor would bother coming to terms with the MS agreement.

But, given the marketplace, I sincerely doubt this would ever happen.

>
>Timothy Miller
>

Joe
My opinions.

Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11497 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3646