[Am-info] 'Big Guns' Weigh In On Microsoft Case

[Steve Sergeant]

At 19:30 -0500 1/28/02, Sujal Shah wrote:
>Another response to ACT might be, "That's the point, stupid."  The 
>entire point is to damage (destroy is too strong for an objective 
>remedy) the Windows standard, precisely because it isn't a 
>"standard," but a monopoly maintained through illegal means.  The 
>point of the case is that the "standard" might have crumbled if 
>consumers were allowed to have a choice in their operating systems 
>and related software.

Indeed, without a monopolizing vendor, the software industry might 
likely have gone the direction of other technology industries, and 
cooperated to form a standards body.

In the broadcast industry, for example, a plurality of 
less-than-dominant vendors, allied with large customers, formed an 
industry standards body (SMPTE) to broker the ratification of 
interoperability standards.  This made the rise of a monopolizing 
supplier unlikely, since customers now demand that products adhere to 
SMPTE standards.  If a vendor wants to introduce a new technology, it 
won't be widely adopted unless they can get its interoperability 
features standardized first.