[Am-info] Wal-Mart

[John Poltorak]

On Sat, Mar 02, 2002 at 08:56:42AM -0800, T.Guilbert wrote:
> In a message dated 2002 March 02 (Saturday), timestamp 10:42 AM, 
>    on the topic Re: [Am-info] Wal-Mart [WAS: The Wallmart PC],
>    "Erick Andrews" <eandrews@star.net> wrote:
> 
> "|>you sell 10,000 PCs with Microsoft installed, your per-processor
> "|>charge is X dollars, total Microsoft tax:  10,000X.  if you sell 9,999
> "|>PCs with Microsoft installed, and one PC bare or with another OS, your
> "|>per-processor charge is (X+Y), total Microsoft tax:  9,999(X+Y). 
> 
> "|What the definition of "Y" here?   Some fraction of "X"?
> 
> "|If so, would you know if it's typically greater or less than 1?
> 
> First, I should note that this CPU charge is nominally the only thing
> that the original FTC consent decree prescribed.  (It is widely
> thought that Microsoft continued the practice thereafter, in minimal
> disguise.)  IIRC back about nine years ago, a friend who ran a
> computer assembly operation said that, for his purchases, X was about
> $30 and X+Y about $50, but my recollection may be faulty. 

Is it possible to verify this practice?

After all that has gone on in the anti-trust trial some indication of the 
values X and Y imposed by Microsoft must have emerged somewhere.

It's clear to me that the per-processor license agreement is still in 
place even though it was declared illegal all those years ago.

Why doesn't anyone raise it as an issue?


> 
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-- 
John