[Am-info] level the playing field

[Lewis A. Mettler]

I was speaking of a logical deduction.  If you want numerical deduction
you may need to look at the actual figure Microsoft used.  As I recall
it was 105 million.

In any event, it is not based upon a poll or vote.  All you have to do
is think just a little bit.  

It does not take any intelligence at all to conclude correctly that
millions of home PC buyers would prefer a $75 discount for not buying
the Microsoft brand of networking.  Millions would take a $35 discount
for not buying IE.  And, millions more (or perhaps a different group in
the millions) would take a $10 discount for many of the system utilities
force sold by Microsoft.

Bundling will in fact ruin any market.  Even the market for bubblegum
would be ruined if Microsoft bundled those cases of bubblegum with the
OS.  And, yes, you would be forced to buy the bubblegum too.  Unless you
do not buy Microsoft or Apple at all.

Even the Linux bundles are unfair and harmful, just not illegal, yet. 
But, as someone has already suggested, the unfairness and harm directly
associate with and caused by bundling have been proven over and over and
over again.  The only contrary argument falsely assumes that all
consumers want both products, do not have either product and do not want
to pick and choose the software they buy.  Those assumptions can not
ever be made.  At least one of them is almost always false. That is, in
almost all cases individual customers will either 1) not need the
bundled product, 2) already have that product or 3) absolutely demand
(as everyone has on this list) that they pick and choose the software
they buy.

Erick Andrews wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2000 12:30:54 -0500, Paul Rickard wrote:
> 
> >lmettler@lamlaw.com
> >
> >>Whan Microsoft introduces evidence in court that over 100,000,000
> >>attempts were made to get Communicator, I do not have any problem
> >>deducting that lots of consumers do not want to be forced to buy the
> >>Microsoft brand first.
> >>
> >>If you can not make that deduction, no one can help you.
> 
> Well, you can deduct me from the 100,000,000.  I deduce that that
> would leave no more than 99,999,999.
> 
> >
> >    Hmm.. One wonders how many of those were users of OSes without IE,
> >like Windows 3.X, Unix, Linux, Mac OS, OS/2..... You just assume they
> >were all Windows users because you see everything from a Windows-grounded
> >perspective. You also seem to have blindly accepted that 100 million
> >figure Microsoft handed out, knowing full well that there weren't even
> >that many people on the Internet at the time that 'count' was taken.
> >
> >
> >======== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign =======
> >--------------------------------[ Http://www.msboycott.com ]-----------
> >
> >
> >
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-- 
Lewis A. Mettler, Esq.(Attorney and Software Developer)
lmettler@LAMLaw.com
http://www.lamlaw.com/ (detailed review of the Microsoft antitrust
trial)