I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Sun May 7 13:43:35 2000

See my remarks below, plz.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 4:43 AM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'


> The working points to tick off are;
>
> MS used the profits from OS sales to subsidize the operations of groups
> competing against the applications of other companies, giving away
products
> if nescessary to force the other company out of business.
>
There's nothing illegal, immoral, or fattening about these. Perhaps there
should be limits, but there aren't, hence everybody (except MS) can do it
with no fear of legal recourse.
>
> MS used OS incompatibilities to kill off competing applications.
>
Incompatibilities of what sort? Isn't that simply a business decision? Have
you and examples?
>
> MS used applications incompatibilies to kill off competing OSes.
>
That CERTAINLY is a valid business/marketing decision.
>
> MS used OS license agreements to kill off competing applications through
> preinstalled software exclusive agreements, and flat rate pricing
> structures (you pay a license fee on every system you sell whether it has
> MS OS on it or not).
>
MS isn't alone in pursuing this practice.
>
> MS used ad boycotts to kill any magazine with negative reviews.
>
That's one of the risks a magazine editor has to take into consideration in
making the decision to publish an item or not. It's just like advertising
the fact that Wal-Mart jeans are built by Chinese prisoners, or that certain
lines of clothing carried by J.C. Penney are made in sweatshops.
>
> MS used coertion and retaliation to make other companies toe the same
line.
> This is especially true now where nobody is willing to say word one in
this
> trial for fear of what MS would do.
>
Oh, there's a lot being said, but little of it's true or relevant. What's
more, the legal beagles aren't "up" enough on what the concepts and verbage
they're tossing around means.
>
> Yes this has been a real help to consumers. Its classic vertical monopoly
> behavior any turn of the century muckraker would recognize, and that it is
> successfull should come as a surprize to no one.
>
Well, we may get to see whether the courts come up with a prudent and
reasonable solution. The obvious solution to break up MS won't help, but it
will serve to octuple the cost of both software and hardware. It will set
back the industry a decade as it tries to find a substitute for MS in a
market where really only one OS and Office automation suite is going to be
effective. If you don't see that through your haze of rage at Microsoft for
doing something you weren't smart enough or diligent enough to do yourself,
then perhaps you can come up with a potential successor OS to WIndows.
Remember, though, that if MS simply closed its doors tomorrow, it wouldn't
harm MS as much as it would harm the end user.

What I'd look for is a small company with fewer than a dozen employees,
since more employees would make the company to ponderous and intert to keep
up, to invent a non-Windows OS with a GUI that won't get them sued, and
integrate their own office automation software with that. Once that's done,
they should, if they're smart, sell out to some biggie, e.g. COMPAQ or IBM,
since only a BIG organization has the resources to mackage, market, publish,
and support a product of that magnitude.

>
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 13:43:35 BST