[Am-info] New Apple store near Beantown

[Mitch Stone]

--- From a message sent by John Poltorak on 12/14/01 6:28 AM ---

>I hate to see people perpetuating this myth... Apple is not a Microsoft 
>competitor. Apple is a hardware company. To suggest that Apple is a 
>competitor dilutes the case that Microsoft has a 100% monopoly on the 
>desktop, and you get stupid commentators saying that you are not forced to  
>use Windows 'cos you can always buy a Mac'. Until MacOS runs on Intel it  
>cannot be described as something which provides any real choice to using 
>Windows. 
>
>To all intents and purposes you are tied in to buying Windows when you buy 
>a PC even though it is not required for using the PC. This is something 
>which must be drilled home so that it eventually gets through to the 
>general public.

No need to respond to such a specious argument with rhetorical 
gymnastics. Apple is a competitor -- they are Microsoft's only competitor 
in the desktop PC market. A 100% market share is not the criterion for a 
monopoly -- the ability to exert market power is. If the 100% market 
share definition had been used, Standard Oil would never have been judged 
a monopoly.

 Mitch Stone  
 mitch@accidentalexpert.com