Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 21:59:00 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: davids@webmaster.com (David Schwartz) Cc: brett@lariat.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Judge: "Gates Was Main Culprit" Message-ID: <199911222159.OAA00163@usr01.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <000601bf348f$75b754e0$021d85d1@youwant.to> from "David Schwartz" at Nov 21, 99 06:15:34 pm
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> > Bull. They were killed by predatory pricing. Technological superiority > > makes little difference when an inferior product is free -- as we've > > seen in the cases of Netscape, Stac, Quarterdeck, and others. > > Price is one of the factors that you have to compare when you > determine if something is superior or not. Pull the other one... we didn't just fall off the turnup truck. Technical superiority is independent of pricing. Pricing is a function of economies of scale and of market forebearance, and has nothing whatsoever to do with technological capability. For example, Microsoft has dropped prices on their software in some markets in order to reinforce mindshare. Clearly, they can't be selling below cost (technical term: "dumping"), since that is an illegal monoply tactic. > If the 'inferior' product is cheaper than the 'superior' product, and this > price difference overwhelms any feature difference, then it's obvious which > product is really superior. The one with the best technology. For example, in the recent bid for the National Aerospace Plane, a brillian SSTO design lost out to a design that will be incapable of landing on the moon or other planets. It will only be good for ground-to-orbit from planets with atmospheres. The SSTO design was much more flexible. One could argue that it had better engine technology, and worse mission profile capability (the winner uses a ceramic linear aerospike engine, which is an engine where the rocket exhaust forms an optimal rocket engine bell out of turbulence for any given atmospheric pressure). With a linear aerospike engine, the SSTO option would have been the best all around option, from a technology standpoint. Technology means that something has utility and application to problems that something without that technology can't match (in the linear aerospike example, the engines don't have to carry a heavy rocket bell, nor cooling equipment for the bell, etc., etc., but that doesn't really help if you wanted to go to the moon). > And it really doesn't matter to the consumer who provides it (at least, > from an antitrust standpoint). So long as the consumer gets the benefit, > then all is well. I guess this explains why the former Soviet Uniion was able to main tain itself in the face of ...oh, _former_; never mind. > My point is that consumers have gained the benefits of > all of these products. When a competitor points out a deficiency > in a Microsoft product, Microsoft acts to correct the deficiency. > This is one way consumers benefit from 'failed' competition. You are crazy. I _still_ can't install Windows 98/2000 onto removable media because the pager can't correctly do paging on removable media. I reported this bug in 1994, and again in 1996. Where is the fix? > > QEMM was still sold for awhile, but not in sufficient volume to sustain > > the company. Its empty shell was bought by Symantec. Microsoft drove > > Quarterdeck out of business. > > Right, by providing a better combination of costs and features. Consumers > reaped the benefit of this competition, as they are supposed to. Antitrust > law does not protect competitors. Actually by putting up a big nasty warning dialog when Windows started, and later by crashingin the presence QEMM (a fixed fight; the OS took a dive so that the consumer would lose their bet). > > Netscape eventually expected to make a profit from DESQview. Microsoft > > simply wanted to put Netscape out of business. And Microsoft was > > (and is!) a monopoly. Monopoly leverage is illegal. > > Are you saying that Microsoft has no intention of making a profit from IE? > If so, what's their goal? How can they make a profit from something they bundle with the OS? > Please, show me the browser shootouts that conclude, "In our opinion, IE is > inferior to Netscape due to its myriad security problems". Put up or shut > up. Uh, they are called "CERT Advisories", not "shootouts"... 8-). > > > Umm, it had nothing to do with any predatory tactics. > > > It had everything to do with IE being a better browser. > > > > Utter nonsense. Again, read the judge's Findings of Fact. > > I have. Remember, that was the starting point. I guess you are implying that you disagree with the findings of fact? You will have a hard time ignoring them; they are almost impossible to overturn, unless you can prove that no "reasonable person" would have arrived at the same conclusions. Microsoft has had their day in court over the facts, and they have lost. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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