Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 09:42:42 -0500 (EST) From: Thomas Valentino Crimi <tcrimi+@andrew.cmu.edu> To: "Jonathon McKitrick" <jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>, "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Judge: "Gates Was Main Culprit" Message-ID: <IsBK7W_00UwF0ACsI0@andrew.cmu.edu> In-Reply-To: <000001bf31fd$24050960$021d85d1@youwant.to> References: <000001bf31fd$24050960$021d85d1@youwant.to>
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Excerpts from FreeBSD-Chat: 18-Nov-99 RE: Judge: "Gates Was Main .. by "David Schwartz"@webmast > > All that really remains of substance is whether M$ acted illegally to > > reserve its market status. > > Yes, but if lock in (and similar affects) are nonexistent, thenit's > impossible for Microsoft to have acted illegally to reserve its market > status. Question is: If Microsoft was hypothetically destined for 60% market share - by forcing OEMs to make an all or nothing decision it was in the OEM's best interest to go with the 60% OS than go through the effort of selling the multiple OSs which would constitute 40% of the market share. Microsoft made their mix-and-match decision trivial. I'm quite sure Microsoft was sure to gain more than 60%, lets say 95%. What tends to trouble people is: Microsoft isn't happy with 95%, they went through the effort of using their potential 95% market share to win them 100% of the consumer PC desktop market. It's the last few percentage points of the market that Microsoft is fighting to staunchly for in making it's morally questionable OEM contracts. Having gone to more than a few lectures given by Microsoft employees it has been said that the Microsoft policy in programming is to go with the 80% solution. Rightly so, you can make a very marketable product which is 80% "done", and given that it's always the last few nits that take the longest, get a fairly decent product out to market, fast. The last 20% are killers, and the last 10% may never even be done, just not worth it. I'd suggest that this is the same policy one should adopt with market share. Gaining a large share of the market of any industry is possible through honest means -- better products, better marketing. The last few percentage points, though, require the eye-gouging which is now putting people up in arms against Microsoft. I hope Microsoft pulls through this and learns that the last few points aren't worth it. That is yet to be seen, of course. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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