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Antitrust Lawyers Not Happy With MS Fee Structures | |
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| Time: 11:17 EST/16:17 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
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The Justice Department says one of the key parts of antitrust legislation against Microsoft isn't working out quite the way the federal government wanted and that the company may not be living up to its responsibilities. U.S. antitrust lawyers had hoped the settlement with the software giant would pave the way for Microsoft's rivals to have a better footing to compete against the company by forcing it to disclose more of the communication protocols it uses in its software. | ||
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| #1 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 1/19/2004 6:44:28 PM |
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And in other headlines.
Microsoft Not Happy with Antitrust Lawyers :-) |
| #2 By 2459 (24.175.137.164) at 1/19/2004 7:20:53 PM |
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This is nothing like Standard Oil. MS gained its position via consumer choice.
The definition of monopoly attributed to them is only for Intel-compatible PC desktop operating systems. The judge had to severely limit the scope of the market to make the claim that MS had a monopoly, and the claim and supporting findings were and are still flimsy. If you read many of the findings, they basically say that other companies can't compete because consumers choose to use MS products, or that the competitors' products are mediocre in comparison. In other words, MS suffers because the consumer likes their products best, and the competitors don't do enough to present a credible alternative. MS does not have absolute power to decide which way a market goes. There are plenty of products they've made that didn't totally beat out their competitors' products, or didn't take off even though they were the sole provider. They still have to find ways of pleasing the consumer with their product more that a competing one, or offer a compelling reason for the consumer to buy into a totally new product. The main thing that has helped MS in markets they've entered is that either there wasn't a competitive threat to begin with, or their competitors didn't take MS' entry into the market seriously. While MS offered new features/usability improvements in that market, the competitor largely remained stagnant, believing that their current 90+% marketshare meant that they knew best what the customer wanted, and that the customer wanted no more that what they provided, especially if that "more" came from MS. As for preventing innovation, look at Java - .NET, Netscape - IE, Text Editors - Visual Studio, Palm - PocketPC, Mac - Windows, No Office Suite (Seperate products - hundreds of dollars a piece) - MS Office, etc. Many of these items and others were considered "good enough" until the other products came along to push the competition from their "good enough" state to a state of "we need more" or "this should be easier". This post was edited by n4cer on Monday, January 19, 2004 at 19:23. |
| #3 By 1845 (67.161.212.73) at 1/20/2004 12:22:03 AM |
| This consumer chose Microsoft. I'll be n4cer did too. Well, that's at least two consumers who chose. You see, consumers can chose the oddball OS (Mac, Linux, etc.) are many there be that do. Bottom line is that the market gave Microsoft its monopoly. |
| #4 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 1/20/2004 12:50:34 AM |
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JWM - So you're claiming Consumers didn't decide that compatibility was an issue to them?
I remember back in the day when there were about a dozen makers of computers, and hardware and software wasn't compatible. It sucked. I get so much more work done these days than I did 15 years ago because I'm not fighting printer driver isues. |
| #5 By 1845 (67.161.212.73) at 1/20/2004 2:34:39 AM |
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"People buy what everyone else is using in order to stay compatible."
IOW, they say, "to me, compatibility is valuable." That means, they choose what to buy. This is no different than saying, "hmm, safety is exteremely important to me, i'll buy a volvo" or "skill compatibility is important to me, so i'll buy and learn Photoshop" etc. The bottom line is - the customer makes a list of what is most valuable and buys based on that list. There is no forcing. There is only choosing. |
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