Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:52:57 -0700 From: Craig Burgess <craig-burgess@home.net> To: J McKitrick <jcm@freebsd-uk.eu.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: M$ anti-trust case Message-ID: <38FB79A9.ADB90550@home.net> References: <20000417160713.B27040@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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J McKitrick wrote: > > At the risk of rehashing old material, i got into a debate with my dad over > this case. He's asking me how it has hurt him to buy software that does > what he wants for as cheap as he has gotten it. He claims that if there > were anything out there better, it could become popular on the merits of > being better... > Any thoughts? Yup. Microsoft has not faced any real competition on Intel since effectively killing DR-DOS. The popularity of Microsoft OS offerings -- more recently "productivity suites" -- is not a product of "market choice" but of Microsoft marketing and exclusionary OEM contracts. Microsoft managed to get OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to sign exclusive pre-load agreements for MS-DOS and later for MS-Windows. When PC manufacturers began including an operating system on the machines they built, as far as the consumer was concerned, there was only Microsoft. The agony of installing an operating system was removed by the manufacturer but -- here's the anti-competitive part -- even if a customer wanted another OS, it's probable that the OEM was prevented from installing anything except MS-DOS and/or MS-Windows. What is Joe Consumer supposed to think when the **only** software which is preloaded on PCs is from Microsoft? That it's the best? Probably. Is that the truth? Probably not. Are you aware of the patent infringement suit (Stac v. Microsoft)? Do you know the origin of "DoubleSpace?" of the "defrag utility" or of "MemMaker?" Have you been watching the latest bouts in the streaming media arena (Real Networks)? craig To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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