Re: bundling is inherently unfair to consumers

["Lewis A. Mettler" <lmettler@lamlaw.com>]

Steve,

Steve Cohen wrote:
> 
> "Lewis A. Mettler" wrote:
> 
> >
> > However, the real fallacy in the example is caused by the fact that the
> > tire company does not have a monopoly at all.  No tire company does.
> > And, as I recall, the example did not say that tires were only sold with
> > the pound of beef.  If it is only a come-on then that might be
> > advertising.
> >
> 
> There ya go again, Mr. Mettler.
> 
> Once again, as someone shoots another hole into your absurd thesis that ALL
> bundling is harmful, you bring up the utterly irrelevant (from the point of
> view of proving or disproving your thesis) point that the tire company does
> not have a monopoly.
> 
> But then, wonder of wonders, you actually come close to agreeing with
> Guilbert's point that this particular come-on is just a form of advertising.
> 
> Come on, Lewis.  Just admit the obvious.  Not ALL bundling is harmful to the
> consumer, especially when the consumer has choices, either to buy the
> unbundled product or to buy a similar product from another supplier.
> And then we can talk about the bundling that we ALL agree is harmful.

I have always distinguished the difference between a suite of products
and a bundle.

If the products are all available separately then the consumer can avoid
the bundle and possibly avoid the harm that might otherwise be caused.

If there are competitors than offer the products separately (such as
WordPerfect selling only their word processor) that has a similar
affect.  In the case of word processors, both Word and WordPerfect are
sold stand alone as they should be.  I have never suggested that the
office suites were "bundles".

In fact, you can go back into the articles on my web page when the
Microsoft office suite programs were being testified about and confirm
my view on that issue.  Mr. Boies asked questions about the marketing of
the office programs and its packaging.  He did so for a very important
reason.  He wanted to contrast packaging with suites with the OS bundle.

You know, despite all of the commentary about who should be banned or
censored, it appears a lot of people do not read English very well. 
And, yes, when it appears that people are not reading the material and
not understanding the issue well, repeating is often required.

-- 
Lewis A. Mettler, Esq.(Attorney and Software Developer)
lmettler@LAMLaw.com
http://www.lamlaw.com/ (detailed review of the Microsoft antitrust
trial)