[TriLUG] A little off topic

[rpjday]

On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Bill Vinson wrote:

> I don't have any doubt that they have broken the law.  However, Justin
> is correct in stating that the constitution does not give the government
> the right to interfere.

this is not relevant.  the constitution also does not *explicitly*
tell me i can't go over to justin's house and burn it down.  but it's
still illegal.  to defend a practice by stating that it's not
proscribed by the constitution is a pretty silly thing to say.

> However, various federal and state laws do as
> does the Sherman Antitrust Act.

which backs up my point nicely, thank you.

> I don't believe that bundling IE with
> Windows should be illegal.  I believe that bundling does improve the
> product.

first, whether bundling IE with windows should be considered illegal
depends on your definition of predatory pricing or, more simply,
"dumping."  this is when a company with deep pockets and lots of time
will sell a product below their own cost just to drive competitors out
of the market.  sound familiar?

there are plenty of examples of dumping one can point to.  years ago,
there was a classic photo of three members of congress who were
gleefully bashing a toshiba boom box with sledge hammers, protesting
toshiba's obvious dumping of home stereo equipment in the u.s., to the
detriment of american manufacturers.  politicians were, naturally,
furious with toshiba.

and yet, when an *american* company does precisely the same thing,
there's nowhere near the groundswell of outrage.  this smacks, at least
a little, of racism.  it's infuriating when a foreign company does it,
but somehow it's just "aggressive" marketing when an american company
does it.  how thoroughly hypocritical.

and regarding your second point, did bundling IE with windows really
make it a better product?  many would disagree.  apparently, tying
IE to the OS made it slower and less reliable.  but there's a bigger
issue here.

if microsoft really wants to make a better OS, i can suggest what
they should bundle "free of charge."  how about an entire office
suite?  microsoft is constantly defending its business practices by
claiming that they're just giving consumers what those consumers
want.  i figure consumers would be just tickled with a bundled,
free office suite.  but it will be a cold day in hell before they
get it.  and why's that?  simple.

microsoft has a basic rule for pricing their products.  free, if
there are competitors they're trying to kill off.  expensive if
they've cornered the market and can price however they want.
the OS and the office suite cost money, since there are no
viable competitors on the desktop.

on the other hand, IE was free to fight netscape, and now, with XP,
things like windows media player are being "bundled" to kill off
competing products like real player.

the rule is simple.  if microsoft is giving something away, it's
only because they're trying to wipe out the competition in that
specific market.

> What I don't agree with is their
> agreements/licenses/unremovable bundled applications.  They have bundled
> which is fine, but they attempted to make the bundling become a weapon
> that could defeat the competition by not allowing their customers to
> unbundle and include competing products.  I believe this is where we get
> into the monopolistic behavior in this instance.

you're getting a little confusing here.  it sounds like you're not
opposed to the idea of bundling, but just the "way" microsoft is doing
it.  i submit that you're splitting some mighty fine hairs here.
>
> M$ is definitely predatory, but the bundling of IE in itself was not
> wrong.

others disagree.

> I don't belive breaking the company is necessarily warranted,
> nor do I believe it will work in ANY WAY.  There are other remedies and
> it is shown that broken up companies continue to thrive historically,
> whereas remediated companies can find that their power over the
> competition is cut out from under them.

it's clear that there are lots of people who support a breakup of
microsoft simply because previous remedies have not worked.  period.

back in '95, microsoft signed a consent decree in which they agreed
to stop some of their anti-competitive business practices.  as far as
anyone can tell, nothing has changed.  for microsoft, it's still
business as usual, and we're all still paying the "microsoft tax."

at this point, i believe the push to break up microsoft is viewed
by a lot of folks as a desperate last resort only because nothing else
seems to work.  if the feds can slap some restrictions on MS to curb
their anti-competitive behavior, that would suit me just fine.

rday