Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 22:32:33 -0700
From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To: "Shannon Hendrix" <shannon@widomaker.com>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: RE: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was: FreeBSD and Microsoft}
Message-ID: <000f01c10126$10525220$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20010629230718.C3383@widomaker.com>
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Shannon Hendrix
>Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 8:07 PM
>To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
>Subject: Re: Lets not bash Windows or M$ at every opportunity {was:
>FreeBSD and Microsoft}
>
>
>On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 11:08:03PM +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>
>> If by 'better products' you mean Windows, then I'd have to be the
>> devil's advocate and suggest that Windows does have some good things
>> that Linux and/or FreeBSD don't have. For instance, they do have
>> support for more multimedia file formats.
>[snip]
>
>This is by design. They create a constant stream of new and different
>media formats, and refuse to disclose the details so that all platforms
>can easily use them. There is no reason for this other than your basic,
>predatory, monopolistic tactics.
>
No, that's not it - the problem here is that every company in the Multimedia
game thinks that creating a proprietary media format is their ticket to
riches. If Microsoft had anything to say about it there would be only one
media format - they are just being dragged along like the rest of the users.
Frankly, I fail to see what is so exciting about Multimedia on a PC anyway.
Sure, games are fun but gaming isn't multimedia, it's gaming. It seems to
me
that so far the only people that have ever built a sustainable business
model
with multimedia are the porno sites. Perhaps that is who is really secretly
funding all of the development on the new streaming video formats because
there's nobody else in the business that is making any money doing it.
>
>The government would never do that, because then the sums of money
>thrown to the pigs in DC would also grow smaller. You need to think more
>like a CongressCritter(TM) sometimes... :)
>
Actually the sums probably would get larger because if you bust up one big
company you get several smaller ones all of whom are competing with each
other and
so they all now have to pay the congresspeople to lobby against each other.
However, in the US anti-trust law, despite what people think, isn't intended
to
be used to bust up large companies. Instead it's intended to create a
_threat_
that the large companies will be busted up, which gives the trust regulators
in
Washington power to force large companies to divest from particular markets.
What has happened with Microsoft is that before the trial they wern't
legally
a monopoly, and so when the trust regulators attempted to tell them to
divest
from particular markets, Microsoft basically told them to "fuck off" This
was most unusual because just about all other large companies in US history
have quietly submitted to the trust regulators when it became obvious to a
blind monkey that they were too big. Even Intel did this several years ago
with the FTC - why do you think that AMD is still in existence?
Since Microsoft refused to submit, it had most of the Beltway scratching
their
heads attempting to figure out what to do about it. It was up to Justice to
take Mr. Gates out to the woodshed and give him a whipping, which they
pretty
much did. Note that Microsoft is now calling for government settlement,
whereas
before they claimed that the government had no authority over them.
Now, from most of Washington's point of view, things are back to normal,
Microsoft's
fate is in the hands of the governmental regulators where it should have
been from the beginning. It will be interesting to see what happens,
because Bill Gates has had a history of weaseling out of agreements. This
particular agreement is going to be a political nuclear bomb, and whatever
bureaucrat in Washington attempts to negotiate it will be throwing their
career away because nobody is going to like it. You are sure not going to
see the Bush administration get involved with the Senate elections coming
up. I think there will be tremendous pressure to have the courts do the
dirty work.
I don't think that anyone can quite imagine what will happen if in the next
5 years Microsoft is back in anti-trust court again, but I can say that
nobody then will stick their necks out for them. Their fate is equivalent
to the criminal who was about to be executed in the electric chair, and in
the final hour the governor pardoned them. If they so much as step out of
line again, they are dead.
Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com
Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com
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