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

[John Poltorak]

On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 12:57:44PM -0800, Mitch Stone wrote:
> --- From a message sent by Sujal Shah on 1/28/02 4:30 PM ---
> 
> >> Excuse me, exactly when was Windows declared "standard?"  Like the 
> >> meter, the
> >> kilogram, the degree fahrenheit, etc ...?
> >>
> >
> >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.
> 
> How can anyone in sound mind, and with a straight face, characterize 
> competition as the problem and not the solution? I've been puzzling over 
> this one for years. It's tempting, but too easy, to chalk up these 
> comments as the scripted remarks of paid Microsoft shills. These 
> otherwise intelligent people must somehow have come to believe that 
> competitive markets are not relevant in this instance -- that a 
> proprietary commercial product can be called a "standard" without it also 
> being called a monopoly.

This is the huge hurdle that we are up against. Most people do see Windows 
as the standard, but fail to grasp that it is a proprietary 'standard' 
controlled and changed at the whim of its owner to not only suppress any 
potential competitor, but to leverage its monopoly position in the desktop 
operating system and applications market, into new markets, viz the 
browser and network OS markets. Both Nescape and Novell were the principal 
players there and where are they now?  Increasingly, Microsoft is taking 
over the Internet by foisting its own standards everywhere so that people 
are finding it increasingly difficult to take full advantage of available 
facilities without the use of Internet Explorer.


 
>  Mitch Stone  
>  mitch@accidentalexpert.com


-- 
John