19-08-2003 03:35									#91
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quote: Imran! Are you really in favor of anti-competitive monopolization?

I'm in favor of the consumer winning in the end. And I don't mind a monopoly in an area where there is a natural tendancy towards monopoly.

	19-08-2003 03:36									#92
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quote: Only a tragically blinded fool could believe that Microsoft won the browser wars through technical superiority.

Utter bullshit. IE did not gain superiority until Netscape totally messed up with version 4. In the end, IE won out because it was the best browser.

	19-08-2003 03:38									#93
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Indeed. People seem to forgot that Netscape was also being bundled by almost every ISP at the time (including mine).

People basically got a choice between IE and Netscape, and the marketshare speaks for itself...

	19-08-2003 03:45									#94
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Asher, Netscape was not free, if you recall. The "free of charge" nature of IE combined with illegal licensing provision made IE win. This is the record established in court.

As to the "freedom to choose" other OS's, Microsoft stands convicted of being a monopoly in the PC OS. They didn't even appeal this issue to the Supreme's.

I am surprised there are people who seriously argue this issue. The issues were argued in court. Microsoft lost.

	19-08-2003 04:00									#95
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quote: Microsoft stands convicted of being a monopoly in the PC OS.

You don't get convicted for being a monopoly.

Sorry for being pedantic, but it's a very important distinction...

quote: I am surprised there are people who seriously argue this issue. The issues were argued in court. Microsoft lost.

Not regarding Internet Explorer -- why do you think it's still bundled? Why do you think they permitted WMP to be bundled still? Ditto with the firewall?

The issue has been argued in cost, and Microsoft certainly won. If they had lost, they'd have been told to stop bundling. Clearly, it's a legal practice.

So you are right, it is surprising so many people here still support Jackson's viewpoint even though his own colleagues discredited him and basically called him a moron, then overturned his decisions.

	19-08-2003 04:03									#96
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quote: Microsoft stands convicted of being a monopoly in the PC OS

'Convicted' means you are guilty of something. It is not illegal to be a monopoly.

quote: I am surprised there are people who seriously argue this issue. The issues were argued in court. Microsoft lost.

I take it then you believe O.J. is innocent?

I'm surprised that there are people that think simply because a court of law ruled on an issue that the issue is dead. Btw, MS lost on other issues, not this one.

After all, the issues of abortion were argued in court. Pro-life side lost.

	19-08-2003 06:40									#97
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Asher, the only difference between a criminal case and a civil case is the burden of proof. The elements of proof are fairly much the same. The court system found that Microsoft was a monopoly and "guilty" of "illegal"monopolization" under the Antitrust laws.

I agree, the Gov't did not prevail on the tying issue. However, inclusion of IE in its OS for the purpose of driving Netscape out of business was critical to the finding of "illegal" monopolization.

	19-08-2003 06:43									#98
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Imran! Are you really in favor of anti-competitive monopolization? I'm in favor of the consumer winning in the end. And I don't mind a monopoly in an area where there is a natural tendancy towards monopoly.

hahahah. computer programs are the most unnatural monopoly ever devised. it has probably the lowest barrier to entry of any high profit industry ever. microsoft's monopoly isnt natural. u act like its the phone company or power company from 100 years ago where it was deemed inefficient to have competition.

MS's monopoly was actively acquired.

	19-08-2003 06:47									#99
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quote: computer programs are the most unnatural monopoly ever devised. it has probably the lowest barrier to entry of any high profit industry ever. microsoft's monopoly isnt natural. u act like its the phone company or power company from 100 years ago where it was deemed inefficient to have competition.

The OS market is a natural monopoly. It is foolish, IMO, to think otherwise. Without a standard the computer industry does not exist in such a large capacity.

	19-08-2003 06:49									#100
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: computer programs are the most unnatural monopoly ever devised. it has probably the lowest barrier to entry of any high profit industry ever. microsoft's monopoly isnt natural. u act like its the phone company or power company from 100 years ago where it was deemed inefficient to have competition. The OS market is a natural monopoly. It is foolish, IMO, to think otherwise. Without a standard the computer industry does not exist in such a large capacity.

basic levels of communication could easily facilitate many competitors in the OS market. .txt, html, etc. its really not hard in the least. and its utter absurdity to think that cuz MS goes around making things incompatible w/ the last versions or other software that this is somehow the only way it had to be.

	19-08-2003 06:53									#101
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quote: basic levels of communication could easily facilitate many competitors in the OS market.

And it'd always end up with ONE standard in the end. Windows was the one picked. Before that, it was DOS. Without one standard things fall apart. It was kinda like the video card industry before DirectX. Before then every card had its own drivers. 3dfx had Glide, a few cards had Direct3d, etc. It was chaos. The PC 3-d game market was stagnating because of it. Glide was becoming a standard slowly to deal with this, until Microsoft came in with DirectX (which incorporated a lot of Glide). After that the market took off, because you had a standard! The 3-d driver was a natural monopoly.

	19-08-2003 06:57									#102
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: basic levels of communication could easily facilitate many competitors in the OS market. And it'd always end up with ONE standard in the end. Windows was the one picked. Before that, it was DOS. Without one standard things fall apart. It was kinda like the video card industry before DirectX. Before then every card had its own drivers. 3dfx had Glide, a few cards had Direct3d, etc. It was chaos. The PC 3-d game market was stagnating because of it. Glide was becoming a standard slowly to deal with this, until Microsoft came in with DirectX (which incorporated a lot of Glide). After that the market took off, because you had a standard! The 3-d driver was a natural monopoly.

Bill was the better businessman. that is not being debated. but this monopoly is not naturally occuring, this isnt the ****ing tide. Bill went out and acquired this thing himself. He used incompatibility among other things as a weapon. whereas u assume they are a natural occurance.

the game plays both ways mind u. Bill tried to tap into AOL by letting msn messanger msg aol ppl. aol quickly redid their program to disallow that. its not natural that that happened. its the two companies fighting.

	19-08-2003 07:00									#103
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Asher:

Did you know you can download an Internet Browser from the command prompt? It's called:

C:\>FTP ftp.microsoft.com

Change to the IE directory and type:

FTP>Get ie5setup.exe
FTP>Bye

Run that file and VOILA! I downloaded a browser without having one in the first place.

	19-08-2003 07:01									#104
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quote: but this monopoly is not naturally occuring

Yes, that it is.

quote: Bill went out and acquired this thing himself.

So, simply because he went out and grabbed the position as the #1 OS, that proves it isn't a natural monopoly? Are you on drugs or something?

If you have 4 incompatible OSs, eventually businesses will start to favor one. This one OS will eventually become the 80% market share (or whatever). Businesses like to have one standard between themselves.

	19-08-2003 07:01									#105
	Increase the size of your Attachments

And how many n00bs (the ones who would use something already installed even if a much better one was available for download) would know how to do that?

	19-08-2003 07:04									#106
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: but this monopoly is not naturally occuring Yes, that it is. quote: Bill went out and acquired this thing himself. So, simply because he went out and grabbed the position as the #1 OS, that proves it isn't a natural monopoly? Are you on drugs or something? If you have 4 incompatible OSs, eventually businesses will start to favor one. This one OS will eventually become the 80% market share (or whatever). Businesses like to have one standard between themselves.

there is no reason they have to be incompatible. basic levels of compatibility easily lead to a competitive atmosphere. infact EVEN TODAY marginal OS's are able to survive(linux, apple). how can u possibly say that this is a naturally occuring monopoly if u can't get rid of the tiniest portion of supposedly incompatible operating system?

ur position is absurd. and ur insinuation that the reason I claimed the monopoly isnt natural is cuz bill is #1 is laffable. re read my posts. the monopoly isnt natural cuz there's a very easy and productive capitalistic way to allow for competition. it just so happens bill kicked the **** outta everyone else.

	19-08-2003 07:19									#107
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quote: there is no reason they have to be incompatible.

Why would they be compatible?

Today I cannot buy a Mac and then put in my GTAIII Windows CD and expect it to work.

quote: how can u possibly say that this is a naturally occuring monopoly if u can't get rid of the tiniest portion of supposedly incompatible operating system?

Simply because there is miniscule competition does not mean that there is not a natural monopoly. I don't know how you define it but monopoly does NOT mean 100% market share.

quote: the monopoly isnt natural cuz there's a very easy and productive capitalistic way to allow for competition. it just so happens bill kicked the **** outta everyone else.

Bill kicked the **** outta everyone to reach the natural monopoly state. Of course you had many people fighting for the prize. In the end Microsoft won out. And a large part of it was that businesses wanted a standard OS. Once MS started to get rolling it started a wave, because of the desire for a standard.

	19-08-2003 07:22									#108
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: there is no reason they have to be incompatible. Why would they be compatible? Today I cannot buy a Mac and then put in my GTAIII Windows CD and expect it to work. quote: how can u possibly say that this is a naturally occuring monopoly if u can't get rid of the tiniest portion of supposedly incompatible operating system? Simply because there is miniscule competition does not mean that there is not a natural monopoly. I don't know how you define it but monopoly does NOT mean 100% market share. quote: the monopoly isnt natural cuz there's a very easy and productive capitalistic way to allow for competition. it just so happens bill kicked the **** outta everyone else. Bill kicked the **** outta everyone to reach the natural monopoly state. Of course you had many people fighting for the prize. In the end Microsoft won out. And a large part of it was that businesses wanted a standard OS. Once MS started to get rolling it started a wave, because of the desire for a standard.

well I guess in the end we simply disagree. I dont wna just fling verbal mud at each other. I feel there is no fundamental need for a monopoly in the OS market and that simple basic communication guidelines would keep it competitive. and that fruitful competitive capitalistic industries are superior to monopolies that manipulate their code and leverage their product in order to attain their position.

u think that there simply has to be one OS, like highlander.

	19-08-2003 07:43									#109
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quote: Originally posted by Ned However, inclusion of IE in its OS for the purpose of driving Netscape out of business was critical to the finding of "illegal" monopolization.

No, it wasn't -- what got MS the "guilty" verdict was the internal memos, the OEM licensing restrictions, and the bullying of Netscape -- which is why all three were addressed in the settlement while IE, WMP, etc. are allowed to be bundled legally.

So you WERE correct when you said the courts already dealt with this and made a decision, so why is it that people continue to whine about it? It's even better when people such as yourself use the case as part of your argument, since it goes against it.

quote: Asher: Did you know you can download an Internet Browser from the command prompt? It's called: C:\>FTP ftp.microsoft.com Change to the IE directory and type: FTP>Get ie5setup.exe FTP>Bye Run that file and VOILA! I downloaded a browser without having one in the first place.

Thank you for teaching me how to use the commandline FTP.

I already posted about using FTP to download it, but even then again: Why can MS bundle an FTP client but not an HTTP client?

And you don't honestly expect consumers to have to use a command-line FTP client to download a basic internet browser, do you? Talk about out to lunch...

	19-08-2003 07:46									#110
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yavoon: Why don't you look up .NET, and what it does and how it works.

All of your complaints have been addressed years ago by MS, either you're not up to speed with the current state of the industry (if so, what the hell are you doing debating here?), or you're intentionally ignoring it (if so, what the hell are you doing debating here?)

	19-08-2003 07:50									#111
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quote: I feel there is no fundamental need for a monopoly in the OS market

Okay. I want you to think real hard on this one.

Programs need to interface with hardware. To do this, some kind of operating system (or at the very least, virtual machine) needs to handle this.

In order for this to happen, programs need a consistent interface that behaves the same across all platforms.

Even in the very unlikely event of someone making a cross-platform specification for system calls, windowing systems, etc -- every system will have its own quirks, and will require enormous resources for any program to be QA tested on tons of various OSes. Not to mention how glacial the development pace of operating systems would become, somewhat like what killed OpenGL for gaming in favor of DirectX.

Another option is to have a standardized virtual machine. But in this case, you're just trading a monopoly of an OS with a monopoly of a VM. The .NET runtime, BTW, runs on Windows, MacOS, BSD, and Linux. So you can run Windows .NET programs on many platforms...

So anyway, as you can see, the operating system industry is absolutely a natural monopoly. It's the only way to:
1) Keep technology advanced
2) Keep development costs down
3) Ease confusion at the end-user level with consistent-behaving computers

Of course, it's technically possible to force 100 different OSes into the market, but it'd just make everything chaotically terrible...

	19-08-2003 07:53									#112
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Thank you for teaching me how to use the commandline FTP. I already posted about using FTP to download it, but even then again: Why can MS bundle an FTP client but not an HTTP client? And you don't honestly expect consumers to have to use a command-line FTP client to download a basic internet browser, do you? Talk about out to lunch...

Just responding to your comment that you need a web browser to download one. A generality that can be shot down with one exception.

Further to your comment about bundling, why not go all the way and take all windows elements that MS gives free that other companies charge for?

- Take out the Windows kernal. It's UNIX btw.
- Take out the GUI. That came from OS/2.
- Oh, and take out NetBuei and NetBios. Those would be Novel's right?
- Can't forget Windows Pinball. That's not Microsoft's either.
- Don't forget messaging.
- Oops, is that UNIX's command-line interpretor under there? That's gotta go.
- And lastly, don't forget to burn all the design documents, documentation, code and everything else like that. Xerox started Windows, not Microsoft.

	19-08-2003 07:56									#113
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Very good point Dale. I wonder if Apple will be smacked down for 'bundling' as well .

	19-08-2003 07:58									#114
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quote: Originally posted by Dale Just responding to your comment that you need a web browser to download one. A generality that can be shot down with one exception.

Thank you for being anal retentive about it, but I was speaking from a practicality perspective.

I've already mentioned the FTP method in passing, but I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to actually imply that it's a practical way for consumers to obtain a web browser. Kudos to you for showing me up on that.

quote: Further to your comment about bundling, why not go all the way and take all windows elements that MS gives free that other companies charge for?

Huh? Why would you do that?

quote: - Take out the Windows kernal. It's UNIX btw.

The Windows kernel is NOT UNIX. Just what the hell are you on?

quote: - Take out the GUI. That came from OS/2.

The GUI was designed by MS, with some help from IBM, for OS/2, you're right -- fail to see the implication behind this.

quote: - Oh, and take out NetBuei and NetBios. Those would be Novel's right?

Actually, no, they're not.
Not that it matters, they don't ship enabled on XP and above.

NetBIOS and NetBUEI were codeveloped by IBM and Microsoft, back in the OS/2 development era (when they worked together).

quote: - Can't forget Windows Pinball. That's not Microsoft's either.

Of course not, it clearly says that on the product. It's actually a demo.

quote: - Don't forget messaging.

Windows Messenger is developed by Microsoft...

quote: - Oops, is that UNIX's command-line interpretor under there? That's gotta go.

Um. No, it's not UNIX's command-line interpretor...

Completely stunning -- you were wrong on every single point, blatantly I may add, in your post.

You've just displaced UR in only a few posts.

	19-08-2003 08:00									#115
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Um... Asher... his post that you dissected was ON YOUR SIDE!

He was saying how silly it was to take away everything MS bundled! Have you no sense of humor whatsoever?!!

	19-08-2003 08:01									#116
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I don't care what side he's on if he's blatantly wrong.

He wasn't being funny, he was being stupid.

	19-08-2003 08:07									#117
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Oy... burning bridges everywhere I see...

	19-08-2003 08:09									#118
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Are you so sure he's "on my side"?

When I read his post, to me it sounds like he's a bit confused.

What's with all the "That's not Microsoft's either" ****, when they clearly are MS'?
And what about his FTP comment?

And exactly what part of the post was supposed to be funny?

And as I'm sure you know, I don't need "bridges" on Apolyton, I can hold my own.

	19-08-2003 08:11									#119
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His entire bundling list! It was obviously sarcasting, insinuating that in the end Windows wouldn't exist because everything it has some other company competes in that market. And it was damned funny!

	19-08-2003 08:12									#120
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But even then, the examples he give don't make sense in that context either...