Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:12:04 -0700 From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> To: "David Scheidt" <dscheidt@enteract.com>, "J McKitrick" <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org> Cc: <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: M$ anti-trust case Message-ID: <000001bfa8a9$33133760$021d85d1@youwant.to> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.96.1000417130556.66799B-100000@shell-1.enteract.com>
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> I don't see how MS could possibly have helped consumers. I don't see how MS could possibly have hurt consumers. > One of > things that > it does is poorly document the Windows API, and make changes to it, > willy-nilly. This makes it much harder for other companies to produce > software, particularly where they are competing with an established MS > prodcuct, like say MS Office. Preventing competition in the consumer > application market is not a help to the consumer. Actually, anything MS does to make Windows worse, less competitive, or less useful helps the consumer as it encourages other companies to develop alternatives and superior products. Believe it or not, if MS makes Windows better, consumers win. If MS makes Windows worse, consumers win. So long as nobody intervenes to force consumers to buy products they don't want or props up products that the free market tried to squeeze out, consumers will always win. The problem occurs when sore losers decide to keep up a fight that the market doesn't want. Ask yourself honestly which situation is better for consumers, Microsoft and Netscape doing the exact same development to produce two nearly identical browsers, both free, or all those talented Netscape engineers working on the next technology that's going to make the browser obsolete? Anything the government does to prop up existing markets and foster competition in them will draw more and more resources away from the really new. The company that will be able to unseat Microsoft will not do it by making a comparable (or even slightly better) browser, operating system, or office suite. They will do it by producing something dramatically new, different, and better. DS To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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