In the Briefcases of Gates' Lawyers

[charles mueller <cmueller@metrolink.net>]

          The following is from another list:
                 
          Charles Mueller, Editor
          ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
          http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller
  
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  From: "David Lloyd-Jones" <dlj@pobox.com>
  
  charles mueller's latest contribution to the fantasy world of Bill Gates
  haters:
  
  
  >They're the ones Bill Gates' lawyers have committed to memory--and briefed
  >him on, and carefully explained to him, as they assured him over the years
  >that he has every "right" under the antitrust laws to monopolize "his"
  >industry.
  
  Since Microsoft sells roughly a third as much software as IBM -- the score
  being roughly $11 billion to $30 billion in 1996, I believe --
  
  and since IBM and Microsoft are merely two of the thousands of companies
  making and selling software, this "monopoly" stuff looks like a load of
  bollocks to me.
  
  Even in industries which Microsoft created from nothing, microcomputer BASIC
  and Intel-based operating systems being two good examples, Gates's company
  is today a niche player.  A large niche player, it may be said, but in both
  of those two its competitors include IBM, recently returned to competence.
  Other very competent companies, including Symantec, Borland, and Novell
  compete in one or the other of these.
  
  There is a pattern for successes in the computer industry: companies that
  make good products and sell them cheap have a tendency to wipe out companies
  selling less good products at high prices.  This Gates sold DOS for $65 in
  the teeth of the inferior CP/M being retailed for $245.  Phillipe Kahn made
  a business out of Borland's garage invention of the IDE (Integrated
  Development Environment) selling first an IDE for the C language, and then
  others later, for a few hundred dollars -- a cheap price for the vast
  productivity increases they brought about.  Later Kahn/Borland became
  dominant in Pascal through the mysterious trick of putting out a fast, easy
  to use, and well documented version for $99 against competitors with
  inferior product at three or more times the price.  Scandalous behaviour,
  I'm sure.
  
                                                                              
  -dlj.