[Am-info] Legal monopoly?

[Eric M. Hopper]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 02:27:08PM -0400, John J. Urbaniak wrote:
> to "...combine and conspire with any other person or persons,
> to monopolize any part of the trade..."
> 
> Hmmm.  I remember Lou Gerstner announcing that "OS/2 was only for
> IBM's 'top 2000' customers."  That was right around the time they were
> wheeling and dealing the Win 95 license for IBM.  And at that time,
> OS/2 was the nearest thing to a "competitor" Windows had.
> 
> That sounds a whole lot like agreeing to "split the market" to me.  In
> truth, IBM killed OS/2 entirely, not just for the "top 2000."  That
> announcement effectively removed OS/2 from the market.  I know I was
> devasted and have yet to recover.
> 
> I bet dollars to donuts that Gerstner *conspired* with Microsoft to
> give Gates his monopoly.  What Sir Lou got in return remains unknown
> for now.

I bet, what he got, was the ability to sell Windows competitively on the
PCs his company made.  In fact, I bet if Lou hadn't done that, IBM
would've slid even further into decline before it eventually recovered
by realizing it couldn't corner markets anymore.

In all truth, what he did was probably the best thing he could've done
for IBM at the time.

Have fun (if at all possible),
-- 
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."  --- Thomas Jefferson
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."  -- Mark Twain
-- Eric Hopper (hopper@omnifarious.org  http://www.omnifarious.org/~hopper) --