> I can't leave this one alone either.
>
> Dick
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: allisonp <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
> To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 9:27 PM
> Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
>
>
> > >That is backwards. The law, and common sense, requires
> > >that you already have to have significant market share
> > >to have monopoly power. Monopoly power is the ability
> > >to control prices and exclude competition by virtue of
> > >monopoly power. To me, the question is, how did MS
> > >achieve that power in the first place. There is no
> > >doubt that once they had the power they abused it --
> >
> I've seen/heard of little evidence of that. Though there have been lots of
> references to such actions. They've been ruthless, yes, but not criminal,
> though some judge lacking in the grey matter to see the obvious, has been
> horswoggled into believing what a bunch of MS-haters tell him.
> >
> > It started with the licensing of DOS at the vendor level to the
> > extent that if the hardware could run dos it had to be licensed.
> > Some of us may remember the early machines the the
> > "jumper" to disable dos. { the is } was to inhibit the CP/M
> ^^^^^^^^
> > follow ons, Netware and the unix varients.
> >
> I'm not sure I know what you mean here. I had a '186-based machine that
> ran DOS and CP/M-86. I didn't like either well enough to give up CP/M-80,
> BTW.
> >
> > This first lockin of the vendors was exploited for the windows
> > software that followed. It would also get the DOJ to issue
> > an aggreement back some years for MS to stop this
> > monopolistic activity.
> >
> Are you sure you'renot taking this one step too far, Allison?
> >
> > Thats how the got the power. The money came from the
> > applications and MS was known for them and never cheap.
> >
> No, they weren't cheap, but they were among the cheapest of the bunch.
> Other vendors' office automation software typically cost more than
> Microsoft's. I wasn't unhappy to see Lotus' offering and WordPerfect's go,
> though I liked the WP v5.1 for DOS and the surrounding office software
> suite. They never got going under Windows, (v3.0, 1990) however.
> >
> > Allison
> >
>
>
>
Actually, you can purchase Office2000 and WordPerfect 2000 and Lotus
Smartsuite Millenium -- the latter two under $120... Office is
considerably more retail -- unless you corporate license under discount.
Actually grey market versions of the later are under $25 each.
I know, I bought both to compare them with the Office used at work and
forced on me. I liked them (used SmartSuite96 at IBM for a while) and
WordPerfect is now purchased and running on my wife's Linux box.
I'm actually a WordStar 6 kind of guy, if I'm not using FrameMaker though.
Bill
--
bpechter_at_monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 18:45:42 BST