"MS is the American Way!" <LOL> Steve, tell us another one!

[Christopher Pall <x97pall@wmich.edu>]

  Read my analysis all the way through. I promise to talk about
  "pink-polka-dotted sailboats" at some point.
  
  http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17081,00.html?latest
  
  Here's my dissection of Steve Balmer's Remarks:
  
                  "I think what we're doing is right, lawful, moral,
                  proper, and competitive. I might even say it's the
                  American way. We're innovating, adding value,
                  driving down prices, competing, serving our
                  customers, and we're doing it well. A lot of other
                  companies in the United States are benefiting
                  because they're building on top of our platform and
                  thriving," he vaunted. "I might start playing the
                  "Star-Spangled Banner" if I went too long."
  
  I take issue with his remark that MS is competitive.
  
  How do you measure how a company is competing? The definition of
  competition is two or more entities engaged in trying to acheive a goal
  under a predetermined set of rules. Microsoft, by including IE in it's
  OS is taking itself out of the browser competition. It effectively says,
  we don't want to sell another browser. How is this competition?
  
  I take further issue with his remark that what he is doing is lawful,
  right and moral. Using your domination in one market to acheive goals in
  another market isn't moral, it's greedy. Greed is bad - it's not right,
  and it's certainly not moral.
  
  I take issue with Microsoft doing customers or companies any good.
  Everyone knows competition is good for a marketplace. I've already shown
  that MS has no interest in competing with anyone. Competing wastes time
  on the way to becoming rich! For more on why Microsoft is bad for
  customers, read about innovation and software prices below.
  
  I take issue with his statement that Microsoft is innovative.
  
  I can't see how Microsoft still insists they are innovative. Much of
  their talent is stolen from other companies, and that talent is wasted.
  Do all of you at Microsoft hear that? All of you who were bought from
  Borland? Apple? Interface Designers? I love the innovation that
  Microsoft has shown the users in the field of disk compression, memory
  management, fax software, and dial-up software. All of these items have
  been integrated and all of these items have suffered horribly from
  Microsoft so-called innovation.
  
                  "It is our hope and expectation that the judge will
                  concur with us--that what we've done is right and
                  innovative and pro-competitive because it serves
                  the consumer very well.
  
  What customers? MS sells the majority of it's software at very
  reasonable prices to OEM manufacturers. The rest of the world has had to
  suffer with the exact same prices on all of it's software. The price on
  Microsoft Office, Windows 95, and NT server haven't changed
  signifigantly in several years. Microsoft serves it's OEM customers
  fairly well, and that's no wonder for it's where MS's domination stems
  from. It's a cozy relationship.
  
  
  
                  "We expect the judge to agree with us that we have
                  a right to sign contracts with our partners that say
                  that they cannot convolute our product in the
                  distribution process. That they can't take pieces of
                  our product out."
  
  To the contrary, the government can tell MS it has to sail
  pink-polka-dotted sailboats in the Indian ocean every tuesday before
  dawn if it felt Microsoft would stop being anti-competitive because of
  it. The issue is NOT what Microsoft is being told to do, the issue IS
  whether or not Microsoft is being anticompetitive by what it is doing.
  These practices must be stopped.
  
  --------------------------------------------------
                Christopher Pall
  Delphi Programmer & Western Michigan Student (CS)
                   ThinkBiz
                Kalamazoo MI USA
               X97PALL@WMICH.EDU
  --------------------------------------------------