From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Date: 23 Dec 92 01:27:51 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Dec22.040237.14440@tc.cornell.edu>, bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu
 (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>In article <Bzn0EI.D2w@csulb.edu> sichermn@csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes:
>
>>  And supposedly Standard Oil (back in the late 1800's) found their oil
>>fair and square. However, the marketing practices they followed and the
>>restrictive covenants they imposed on their distributors and sellers
>>were anti-competitive and the general vertical control they exercised
>>over the whole system was deemed unhealthy for the consuming public.
>>hence anti-trust laws. Similar findings were made with respect to movie
>>studios and theaters more recently. All were forced to divest and
>>restructure in a more horizontal fashion. If MS is found to exercise
>>similar control, they may be forced to do similarly.
>
>I dont care what MS _might_ do. I do care about what they have
>done. By now, with the exception of IBM (with an early help from MS),
>nobody was able to produce as cheaply an operating system that people really
>_wanted_, other then MS. Just take a look at the history and you will
>see how prices are becoming lower, and new applications that people
>_want_, are being written as a result of MS-Windows.


First, let's get it strait.  MS had help from IBM at the start.  IBM certainly
could have written their own system in the beginning, but due to a number of
factors, not the least of which was anti-trust laws, they looked elsewhere and
thus MS got their first and biggest lucky break.
Second, applications are just as expensive as they were a few years back.
They do more now, but the prices for them have remained fairly constant.
Third, if you don't care about what the company that made your system is up to
and how it might affect you, then you are asking for trouble.  If I thought
for a minute that IBM was going to suddenly drop OS/2 or something equally
stupid, you can bet that I would switch faster than you can say goodbye.  I
jumped away from MS systems for the simple reason that I don't see MS taking
their systems the direction I want to go.  I don't like their systems and I
don't like their plans for their systems, and thus I use a different system.
Ain't capitalism great?

>
>If MS is capable of keeping prices down for the customer, why
>should _they_ be penalized and not the less efficient companies ?

Efficency has absolutely nothing to do with it.  MS can keep prices down,
because they are big and have lots of sources of income besides DOS and
Windows and they can afford to keep the prices lower.  IBM can do much the
same thing due to their size.  Smaller companies, regardless of how efficent
they might be, will depend upon a system they build to bring in a significant
portion of their income.  They simply can't afford to have the same low prices
as MS or IBM can.
>
>>--
>>Jeff Sicherman
>>up the net without a .sig
>
>Dov
>

-- 
Stacy John Behrens
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The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not
legitimacy.                                  [Albert Einstein]
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