LAZINESS, Not Corporate Greed, Breeds Monopolies

Exactly right.

It's simple... Microsoft and Bill Gates were the underdogs at one point, therefore He was a hero.  However, he committed one of the few unforgiveable sins against U.S. culture... He succeeded.  Therefore he can't be a hero anymore, he is the enemy.

Well, besides laziness, there's the people who just don't have a clue. I think that I would move out of state if my mother decided to switch to Linux.

You have part of the issue, but not the other.  Regardless of the industriousness or laziness of the people, the fact that Microsoft can dictate to the rest of the supply chain makes them a monopoly by the definition of the government, and in practice.  It is not that they can dictate to you what to buy, but they can dictate to other suppliers what to make.  And have.  It is not a surprise that they have been convicted several times of monopolistic practices, because like any business, they use their market share to drive other competitors out of the market.  Apple and Linux not withstanding, we have Wordperfect, Lotus, DR DOS and others where they have lost suits of this kind.  Not due to their market share, but using it to drive the others out of the business.

They cannot (although they try) to kill Linux for a couple of reasons.  There will always be a segment that rebels against the authority, and you cant beat Linux on price (just apps).  The same with Apple.  The typical Mac user is not your aunt Ida, but a gear head that loves the GUI and hates Microsoft (and usually, not always, has as much real knowledge as the typical Linux user).  But Microsoft cannot and in the end does not want to kill them.  While the government defines a monopoly as anywhere from 40% of the market up to 100%, most people will say "Look at Linux" (or Apple), and not believe they are a monopoly.  But when they can dictate Web standards based upon penetration of the market, in most economists books, that makes them one.

They are treading (and will continue to tread) a very tight rope to avoid being officially labeled one due to government regulations.  When ATT was broken up back in the early 80s, it only had about 80% of the market - yet it was considered a monopoly and regulated like one.  That is what Microsoft is trying to avoid, and the brilliance of Gates so far in avoiding that regulation.

Dr. Guy.. A monopoly doesn't "dictate" the supply chain, a monopoly OWNS the supply chain... much like how Apple doesn't business. Apple is much closer to the real definition of a monopoly than Mircrosoft.

Owning the supply chain does not make a monopoly. Owning the only supply chain would. And yeah, if the supply chain didn't listen to Microsoft, or Wal-Mart, they'd be out some serious sales. Probably out of the business. So they do dictate to others what they should do, which is wrong - other businesses should be able to make their own decisions, besides 'Stay in with Wal-Mart or Microsoft' or 'go out of business'.

Regardless of the industriousness or laziness of the people, the fact that Microsoft can dictate to the rest of the supply chain makes them a monopoly by the definition of the government, and in practice.

I thought anti-trust law was supposed to protect the _customer_ and not other companies?

That depends upon your definition. The government (and I am speaking strictly of them at this point) defines a monopoly several ways. One of them is having undue influence over the supply chain - not control of it. In one sense of the word, Apple is a monopoly - on their own platforms. But then they do not dictate outside their platform, and cannot set standards in the industry due to other platforms available. It would be like calling Ford a monopoly because you can only use ford parts on your cars. But the out there is you can buy a Toyota.

They are, and that is why Microsoft knows it is one lawsuit away (actually it happened, it was just blown by the Judge) from being broken up. And why it is walking the tightrope to stay under the radar.

Other companies ARE customers, too, and their well-being will affect us. If someone is telling Mr. Wardell here that certain features need to be included in his game in order to publish it, but those features are time consuming and not very good, and he goes with that publisher, we'll get an inferior product at a higher price than if there were multiple publishers interested and they were hurting for games to publish.

Dr Guy's comments are towards the point that I would make with regard to Microsoft acting as a monopoly.  The fact that they have dictated that OEMs had no real choice but to accept paying a 'Microsoft tax' on every computer system that was made and sold tells me all I need to know.  Even if I insisted that Dell sell me a system without Windows, I paid a stipend to Microsoft for that system.  Sorry, but that is directly the result of monopolistic practices by Microsoft.

Practices like that, and practices like bundling -- come hell or high-water -- their own browser and media player software into their operating system regardless of other alternatives that existed were what got Microsoft into trouble.  While the bundling of those applications was something that Microsoft claimed the marketplace and their customers wanted, what Microsoft missed was that the public wanted the ability to easily connect to the internet but didn't necessarily want to have to use Internet Explorer to do it with.  The public was initially happy with Netscape, until Microsoft crushed them by giving away copies of IE, and not just giving the copies away, but forcing the usage of those copies to access things like Microsoft's Update site.

There are many reasons I'm cheering on the EU (European Union) in their harsh punishment of Microsoft -- including making Microsoft share code that would otherwise be considered proprietary and never see the outside world -- but most importantly in my mind is that having real, serious, competition for Microsoft is a good thing.

And by the way, to follow-up on something here -- there's a big difference between simply being a monopoly and being one that has abused that monopoly power to harm competition.  Microsoft is guilty of the latter.  They have abused that monopoly power and would be doing much worse if -- as Dr Guy points out -- they could do so without bringing the axe down on their company.

I wish like hell that Thomas Penfield Jackson had been more restrained in his comments with the media that caused his original decision to get tossed.  He was absolutely right with that decision and punishment and I think we'd be much farther ahead tech wise if his original ruling had stood.  We'd probably have Office running on various flavors of Linux (without needing WINE or other stuff behind the scenes that didn't come directly from the Microsoft Apps company), we'd be able to more easily find drivers for hardware without having to compile them, and we'd be able to do a lot more with the computers we have because the resulting companies would be competiting not just with the rest of the marketplace but also with themselves to gain customers for their products.

The government redefines words to fit their agenda.

"I thought anti-trust law was supposed to protect the _customer_ and not other companies?" They are, and that is why Microsoft knows it is one lawsuit away (actually it happened, it was just blown by the Judge) from being broken up.

How exactly do Microsoft harm the customers?

I read about the case back then, but I never saw that particular question relly addressed. I don't see how it harms customers, especially since the quasi-standard "Windows" helps customers so much.

How did they make the case that Microsoft's monopoly power (NOT the same as a monopoly!) harms customers?

One way is in the inelasticity of the price of the product. The cost of the OS from microsoft has gone up and up, while all other components of computers have come down. Why? because they can. If Microsoft was fighting for market share (like in the gaming one), their prices would be more competitive.

Another is in restricting competition. By being a vertical marketer, Microsoft is cutting out competitors in other markets. Specifically in the 90s, they killed DR DOS (a much superior product) by writing code into windows that prevented it from running Windows - that was its only purpose and they lost that one as well. Another is with Bundling. At first the consumer benefits (they have to get the market share before they can exploit it). But once the other companies are driven out (or made irrelevant), the price then comes back.



Depends on where you are defining it. In US law, it is the same. In the purest definition, a monopoly has 100% of a market. Other than patents and some (not all today) Utilities, there are no dictionary definition monopolies. However, the government says that a monopoly is one that can set the terms of the market, and that is why in some cases, it can be as low as 40% of the market to be defined as a monopoly.

Really? How much do Microsoft charge Dell for the OS? How much do and did other OS vendors charge?




How is the customer harmed? There are free alternatives to all of Microsoft's products. Before Microsoft's "monopoly", most of these cost a lot of money. I can only see the customer benefitting here. We have now a huge selection of free word processor applications.




I have seen DR's attempts to write a GUI and I have seen Microsoft's. I cannot see how the customer was harmed by Microsoft winning. DR's GEM (on x86) was horrible and restrictted to 640 KB of memory at a time when Windows already used XMS and offered 16 MB.

I don't see how Microsoft's writing code into Windows preventing it to run on other company's operating systems harms the customers more than DR and Atari delivering TOS and GEM as a single ROM, thereby also preventing customers from running the GUI on another OS.

Do you remember Mint and all those tricks Atari's customers had to employ to run GEM on a multitasking OS?

The question was consumers, not the supply chain. I do not have that information, and it is not relevant to the question.



By paying more for a product than the market would indicate in a more competitive market. Again, I am not saying that Windows is the only alternative. I never have. But then standard oil was not a monopoly in the dictionary sense of the word either. They did not restrict supplies either, and there were still alternatives. What they did do was set the price higher than it would have been had Standard not controlled the market. The injury in these cases (and again I am simply stating the legal definitions and laws, not the dictionary ones) is that the consumer is being charged an inflated price due not to market forces, but due to one companies arbitrary pricing structures.

(Sorry, it posted before I was ready). To my knowledge, DR never did try a GUI. They had an excellent DOS back in the 90s. Far superior to MS DOS. Microsoft wrote into the code of windows 3.x (which if you remember ran on DOS) to prevent it from running on DR DOS. For no other reason than to stop DR DOS from gaining market share (it worked).

It is called vertical intergration for a reason. At the time, Windows was just a shell, and Microsoft was cutting out competitors other software (forget GEM) when there was no reason to other than monopoly.

Look at it this way. I know you are heavily involved in computers. But let's take Power. Suppose your power company decided to patent a new power supply that only did 330 current instead of the standard 220. The power company then decided that instead of sending 220 down the line, it would only send 330. That would drive all other power supplies (not sources) out of business real fast and restrict competition. That is vertical integration used to gain a monopoly, and like it or not, it is illegal in almost all countries for that very reason. Microsoft did it, and they were nailed and forced to pay for doing it (by the time the case was finally settled, the award was a paltry $347m and Microsoft paid that out of petty cash to I think Corel).

And again the injury is always money. If The power company charged $100 for their power supplies, but others could charge $50, and then the power company did their deed, the consumers would be out $50 for every electical device they bought. It would add up quickly.