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Time:
10:06 EST/15:06 GMT | News Source:
Associated Press |
Posted By: Byron Hinson |
Microsoft is trying to convince the federal judge in its antitrust case that RealNetworks — one of Microsoft's chief rivals and accusers — is very successful even without the penalties that nine states want to impose on the software company. A Microsoft lawyer who questioned RealNetworks executive David Richards on Wednesday cited evidence that RealNetworks, one of the pioneer Internet media companies, has its signature product on more than 250 million computers. It also has exclusive deals with several leading computer manufacturers as well as major league baseball.
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#1 By
2960 (156.80.64.134)
at
3/21/2002 10:25:42 AM
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Ah, the old "They survived despite our illegal actions, so it shouldn't count" argument...
TL
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#2 By
135 (209.180.28.6)
at
3/21/2002 10:29:39 AM
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What exactly has Microsoft done to Real which is illegal?
Keep in mind that Real is responsible for the quality of their own code, not Microsoft.
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#3 By
2960 (156.80.64.134)
at
3/21/2002 10:33:15 AM
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Sodablue,
Um, read the court reports :)
I didn't deem them guilty, the courts did.
TL
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#4 By
135 (209.180.28.6)
at
3/21/2002 2:13:21 PM
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#11 - Prove it.
While it's quite possible Real has lost business, why is Microsoft liable? Are you saying that Microsoft should not be allowed to offer any competition in markets? Are you saying that Real should have a protected monopoly on their software? Should Apple also be forced out of the marketspace because of their Quicktime product? Why?
This is the problem with your argument. You say you want competition, but yet you clearly do not. If there is going to be competition in the market place, some companies are going to lose market share.
But the law is quite specific. The law doesn't care about damage to the competition, it cares about damage to the consumer. So again, I ask you... Prove it. Let's make it simple... How have I been harmed, as a consumer, by the existence of competition?
This post was edited by sodablue on Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 14:14.
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#5 By
135 (209.180.28.6)
at
3/21/2002 4:41:45 PM
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While I am not real found of Real's desire to spam my desktop with icons, or launch up spyware in the background, etc... I don't totally hate the application.
I have all three of them installed on my desktop, and use them almost equally.
What I would like to see is an open standard for streaming audio and video. Will we see this? No, probably not.
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#6 By
1845 (12.254.231.11)
at
3/21/2002 5:51:34 PM
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I'll second that #19. Let's add to it that before Microsoft got into the Office market there was the unchallenged WordPerfect for word processing and Lotus for spreadsheets. Before Microsoft put much effort (sorry Media Player 6.4 wasn't too exciting and there was no asf, wma, or wmv at that time) into media technologies, Real was king. Before Microsoft entered the browser scene with Internet Explorer we had one real choice - Netscape. Before Microsoft entered cross language / cross platform , write once run anywhere development platforms there was one - Java.
Who is the entrenched OS vendor in the server market - Sun or IBM. The database market - Oracle or IBM.
Now, exactly who is creating competition in the market place and who is afraid of it? It seems that for all of its anti competitive behavior, Microsoft has created quite an amount of competition for those who held majority market shares in their respective arenas.
As I final note, in all of those arenas where Microsoft has decided to compete - I CHOOSE to use Microsoft products over their competitors, not because Bill Gates threatened my life, but because I am a consumer with a brain who makes his own decisions.
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#7 By
5444 (208.180.245.184)
at
3/21/2002 7:16:41 PM
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#10 Define an OS??
Remember we are in a Multimedia world now.
BTW if you look at a standard Unix or Linux distribution than MS doesn't even remotely provide an OS.
El.
This post was edited by eldoen on Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 19:36.
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#8 By
5444 (208.180.245.184)
at
3/21/2002 7:32:22 PM
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I agree with Bob,
In this point. Before Office the concept of a suite didn't exist. It also introduced competition. (some say that MS stole the technology to make it happen, but that is besides the point)
But until MS brought alot of the products out, there was only one vendor.
So the Issue becomes this. MS shouldn't enter into exclusionary contracts where the OS and the Middle ware are part of the deal. Either one or the other.
That is the right, if MS makes deals that give the software at a lower price to the vendor. Now the Vendor has a choice in the Matter, but they look at the bottem line and do the deals.
That unfortantly is where BEOS got hurt in. Linux hasn't really tried to distribute itself.
BEOS also got hurt in the fact they got kicked off Of APPLE. So they should be sueing both MS and APPLE in that regard.
El.
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#9 By
1913 (68.14.48.57)
at
3/21/2002 7:34:16 PM
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Here you go number #16 ...just incase you are using REALONE.
Download the trial version of TweakMagic, so that all of you can remove the hidden start command of RealOne. Somehow REAL manage to hide the command line from MSConfig's startup tab.
Once you delete the command, make sure you SAVE the settings. =)
(sorry ...can't remember the exact command, but you all should see it w/ out any problems)
< www.magictweak.com >
...and yes I have all three players in my system. Somehow Real and the government think that we cannot make our own decision.
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#10 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
3/21/2002 10:09:06 PM
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Ah... I see we have hit a key question concerning anti-trust law.
At what point do you draw the line that prevents a company from utilizing a resource to compete?
In Microsoft's case, they used their market clout to "force" (aka offer an extremely hard to resist opportunity to make money) OEM's to use Windows and only Windows. They are able to do this because of their massive market share and ability to absorb losses. According to nearly everybody, this is illegal.
But what if Microsoft decided to buy every minute of advertising time on network TV. (They almost could, too.) This prevents competitors from advertising competing products, thereby providing the same "barrier to entry" that the exclusive OEM contacts do.
This, however, is not illegal. Should it be? How about 50% of the advertising time? 25%? How about making it so that Microsoft can only use 30% of its profits to advertise? How about making it so that Microsoft can only use 30% of its profits to compete, period. How about making it so that tax dollars are given to Microsoft's competition to even the playing field?
Obviously, my examples get more and more extreme... but how do they fundamentally differ from the idea that Microsoft can't have exclusive contracts? Since when did the buyer have control over the terms of a contract? It's supply and demand, not demand and supply.
Anyway... I'm not confident that the free market can regulate all things in life. I think greed cannot be the sole regulator in society - but I do think that the free market fixes many of the problems it is blamed for.
Greed should not be the driving force in any human society, but it is more important to ensure freedom than it is to ensure people make the "right" choices.
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#11 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
3/21/2002 11:47:55 PM
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#31 -
"An OS is a library that can boot a computer."
"A library is software that provides all it's functionality through an API."
So would you consider the BIOS boot loader a "user" of the kernel's "API"? With your definition, even the WinNT kernel is not an OS because it, alone, cannot boot a computer. So, strictly, the BIOS boot loader is the only true OS; for a computer can boot without a kernel, but it cannot without a BIOS.
All in all, that's probably the most unambiguous, unarbitrary definition of an OS I've heard to date... nice one.
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