[Am-info] Another view (other views)

[Norm]

On Mon, 12 Jun 2000 07:40:26 -0700, T. Guilbert wrote:

>"|     But lately that's changed.  Finally these people started
>"|reading the same things in the national press that I'd been telling
>"|them for years, and although his language isn't quite as strong now
>"|a federal judge agrees with me too.  Now my dire warnings about how
>"|dangerous M$ can be if left to their devices carries credibility
>
>I think you are living in an isolated island of rationality.  I have
>mentioned the establishment Oregonian in this maillist before; the
>other day, it ran its top editorial on the final judgment in the
>Microsoft trial, in which it said that "the industry" and "market
>forces" had made the judgment irrelevant and unnnecessary before the
>judge had ruled, and that the case was about Microsoft's
>"unsuccessful" attempt to kill off Netscape as a browser (which it
>views as just another application, not as a middleware threat to an
>OS). 


     Well although it's not Washington (state) I'd still expect the
'Oregonian' to be somewhat parochial in this matter, so I'd be rather
surprised if they didn't side with M$.  But that said, the kinds of
people I'm talking about aren't the pundits (political, industry, or
otherwise), they're just people who actually work with these systems
(gee, what do they know).  

     But if you noted my final phrase you'd realize that I really
didn't win anyone over.  Although many came to the conclusion that much
of what I've been saying over the years is correct it hasn't changed
what they use...and I don't expect it to.  At best it's a start.  It's
been a real battle having M$ exposed for what they are, but I believe
it's going to be even more difficult to get many to actually give a
damn.  It's just like the complaints about the AT&T breakup.  As much
as people claim they prefer choices they certainly don't like being
given choices where none previously existed.


>
>On another maillist, meanwhile, a friend of mine who has served as a
>"James Carville" type consultant to many major Democrats, some of whom
>you undoubtedly have heard of, wrote a Nixon Defense screed in support
>of Microsoft (in response to the posting of another member of the
>list, who was not me).  Normally, I would not quote another person's
>message from one list on another, but it distills what I have seen as
>the _prevailing_ view among those whom I know:
>
>    <begin quotation>
>
>> But Microsoft also used the power of this natural monopoly in illegal
>ways.  It
>> pressured computer makers not to offer competing operating systems or
>> applications that competed with Microsoft's own. 
>
>Standard operating procedure long before MS did it. That's what made
>CP/M emerge as the universal pre-DOS operating system. It's what made
>"bundling" of applications with CP/M the norm. Here's some very brief
>history.
>
>WordStar got itself made the word processor of choice by making deals
>with boxmakers who used CP/M, which was nearly all of them. Then
>WordPerfect found a better way to twist arms and WS was abruptly
>replaced by WP despite WS being the better program. Standard software
>competition long before Microsoft. Gates only did what everyone else
>was doing.
>
>What went wrong? Gates did it better. He did it as the owner of the
>operating system AND the applications. This was more than standard
>procedure. It was a new level of market control. Was it illegal? 
>
>The government refused to get involved despite being asked, so
>evidently anti-trust didn't think it was illegal. This was the Reagan
>era. Republicans. Supply side economics. Laissez-faire. Trust the
>marketplace. 
>
>Ah, the marketplace. Application software bundling was always hated
>and resented by those who didn't get bundled. Equally, losing to CP/M
>was resented by other operating system publishers. Now all these
>losers had one target to focus on. Gates created an unprecedented
>coterie of resentful losers. 
>
>They found allies in PC techies and consumers who hated Windows,
>allies in PC techies and users who preferred OS/2 or whatever, and
>allies in society's malcontents who resent on principle anyone else's
>success. 
>
>That's a formidable hate group and Gates, who obviously has the people
>skills of a techie nerd with greed, blundered enough to fuse the group
>into a monster. And didn't care. "But Sire ..." isn't music to the
>king. 
>
>> It has apparently given inside
>> information to its own application programmers to put outside apps at 
>further
>> disadvantage. 
>
>The practice was to allow 3rd parties to subscribe to a service which
>kept them updated on progress in MS software development. The got the
>new code when it was usable. Some resented paying for this and
>expected a free lunch. (People skills of techie nerds again.) Some
>expected that every update was perfect and could be implicitly relied
>on not to change. They believed MS programmers couldn't make mistakes
>or change their minds. When such people bitch, consider the source. 
>
>> It has countered the perceived threat of Netscape not just by
>> improving its own browser but by the ultimate in predatory pricing,
>making its
>> browser free (and implying that removing it would cause Windows to fail).
>
>The *free* distribution of a vital, universal software application is
>not cause for consumers to retch. 
>
>Forcing the consumer to use your INET services when they use the
>product, however, is. Grabbing the consumer by the short hairs and
>telling him where to piss adds another layer to the MS hate group.
>
>Hola! Don't Netscape and AOL do the very same thing, pre-set *your*
>browser to *their* addresses way beyond what's required to use a
>browser? But only MS gets hated for it, due to acclimation. 
>
>If we didn't resent the guy we could appreciate that Gates saved us
>millions if not billions in browser costs. Once out of beta Netscape
>was supposed to cost $100. With a clear field and no MSIE for
>competition it might have risen to three, four, five times that. We'll
>never know. Gates never gave Jim Barksdale the chance.
>
>For making the Internet Explorer free Gates is St. Gates in my book.
>For giving it the SAME NAME as Windows Explorer he's just another dumb
>nerd.
>
>> Left unchecked, this would lead to a world in which only Microsoft
>software is
>> available.  
>
>Only if MS apps and the OS were better, so that people freely chose
>them. Hey, was SUN somehow forbiddden from developing an operating
>system for user PCs to compete with MS? They could easily afford the
>effort.  MAC wasn't competing? UNIX/LINUX wasn't? The huge Euro
>publishers couldn't develop an OS and try to market it? 
>
>This isn't like self-developing film or Xerography where patents lock
>up the only known technology for generations.  Anyone with the skills
>and money is free to develop a PC OS and apps for it. 
>
>It's adolescent to think the world would beat a path to their door
>merely because the product is better, but today bottomless venture
>capital is there to pay for marketing expertise as well as programming
>expertise. The belief that Microsoft is unbeatable is a fault in the
>believer. They're hard to beat, to be sure.
> 
>> On the other hand, I don't see the case for the government's actions (see
>below)
>> regarding nylon.  Anyone was free to come up with a superior product.
>There was
>> no coercion to use it instead of rivals, nor was there a problem of
>maintaining
>> compatibility as there is with software.  In practice, I don't know that
>anyone
>> has surpassed nylon, but does that affect the legalities?
>
>Why the anti-trust functionaries trudge into action is only a mystery
>if one goes to the schoolbook where it says - "We live under the rule
>of law."
>
>
>It's no mystery when you look closer and see what that really means -
>we are a government of men writing, passing, and using laws in a
>profit-driven representative democracy. Ergo, we live under the rule
>of laws made by legislators with agendas and constituents and
>telephones. Anything can happen. 
>
>The Republicans are gone. Laissez-faire is muted. Under the Democrats
>Microsoft becomes anti-trust meat.
>
>On-point - in Virginia our most venerable and honored adage on
>government is: "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe so long as
>the legislature is in session." We allow our state legislature to meet
>two months a year, two and a half months in alternate years. The rest
>of the time they lead private work-a-day lives mixed with attending
>legislative committee meetings. 
>
>None of them is a professional legislator living a life separate and
>above the rest of us. No legislator in Washington is anything else. To
>me the difference shows. 
>
>    <end quotation>


     Besides the 'revisionist history' (and claims to be a Democrat) he
really sounds like a closet Libertarian to me...at least when it comes
to antitrust law.  What I ask people like that is if they believe in
antitrust enforcement under any circumstances, and usually after you
wade through all the crap you'll find they don't.

     These guys worship 'the golden rule' (he with all the gold makes
the rules).  If 'the mafia' found a way to pull off an IPO they'd be
first in line to get in on it...and if you and I didn't like it it must
be because we're jealous of their success.  For these people 'money =
good', and regardless of what side of the isle he claims to be on the
quote "profit-driven representative democracy" tells me all I need to
know...IOW I'd consider the source.

--
 ...Cheers,

 ...Norm

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