From: sichermn@csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Date: 20 Dec 92 20:49:49 GMT
Organization: Cal State Long Beach

In article <1992Dec20.052923.23904@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>In article <BzHGFA.Boo@utdallas.edu>, goyal@utdallas.edu (MOHIT K GOYAL) writes:
>
>|> REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1992 DEC 18 (NB) -- Business Week
>|> magazine, in its December 28th issue, says FTC investigators have 
>|> concluded that the software company has engaged in anticompetitive 
>|> actions. The magazine also reports that the investigators are 
>|> preparing recommendations as to how to proceed against the company.
>
>Well you can kiss American leadership in operating systems out goodbye.
>Once the Federal Goverment starts trying to enforce "fairness" you know
>its all over.  No matter that the entire Japanese economy is structured
>in an "anticompetitive" way.  No matter that software is one of the last
>remaining strong points of the American economy.  No matter that American
>programmers are trying to compete with programmers in Eastern Europe who
>are thrilled to work for $300 a month.  Nope--we've got to tear into and
>destroy one of our strongest companies.

  Now, now, try and calm down a little bit. I doubt that anything that
the FTC is contemplating will 'destroy' Microsoft. AT best, it will
just require them to try an play an little fair(er) with the other children.
One could also argue that more openness in some areas will make the
American software industry as a whole more robust and competitive, instead
of undue concentration in Billy's hands where he gets to deicde what's
best for all of us and then exploit it to the detriment of others.

>
>|> According to Business Week, the recommendations being prepared by 
>|> the agency's investigators could include breaking up the company, 
>|> altering the way its software is sold to computer makers, or 
>|> isolating the divisions from each other. The latter move, if
>|> adopted, would effectively have each division operating as a 
>|> separate entity.
>
>The blatent egotism of the FTC just slays me.  Why do they think they can
>tell Bill Gates not to let his DOS programmers talk with his MS Word 
>programmers?  

   Well, maybe because they have the power. Like the police can tell you
what to do occasionally.

>
>How Bill Gates runs his business is nobody's business but Bill Gates's.

  Sorry to disappoint you, but this issue was settle quite a long time
ago when the robber barons ran roughshod over the economy and used
market power in anti-ethical, non-competitive ways. For better or for
worse, the country decided that there was a social and economic interest
for the country at large in regulating corporate behavior, particularly
when it was structured or operated in anti-competitive ways. And the government
was given this power in the Constitution in the regulation of interstate
commerce. Now of course, if Bill wants to just sell his 'wares in Washington,
perhaps we can just ignore him ... he could open a little software-stand
on a street corner in Redmond.

>
>|> Rival software companies have complained publicly and apparently to
>|> the Federal Trade Commission that Microsoft uses "predatory
>|> practices" in selling its operating systems. 
>
>Yep, that's the good ol' American way of doing business alright.  If you can't
>compete with someone, just get the Federal Goverment to break up their 
>company.  The real "predatory practices" going on here are those vultures
>of rival companies who are waiting to pick the bones of what's left of
>Microsoft after the FTC's guts the carcass.

   Oh, please.



-- 
Jeff Sicherman
up the net without a .sig
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy