[Am-info] Shutting down the e-list -- call for alternatives

[Edward A. Simmons]

I will miss this list. I have learned quite a bit from following it. I 
have enjoyed articles from everyone, posted rarely myself, but always 
welcomed the messages.

73

Edd

Mitch Stone wrote:

> Gene,
>
> Thanks for keeping the list alive when nobody else would. Sorry to see 
> it wither away and die, but I suppose I'm the only person left on the 
> list who spoke at one of the two events the list was created to 
> promote so I suppose its time has come and gone.
>
> Cheers all,
>
> Mitch
>
> On Feb 16, 2005, at 1:33 PM, Gene Gaines wrote:
>
>> To all,
>>
>> The AM-INFO list has outlived its usefulness.  The last message
>> posted was from Erick Andrews on Dec. 17, 2004.
>>
>> I now plan to shut it down in the next week.
>>
>> A LAST PIECE OF WORK.  If anyone has any favorite sites or
>> email lists that cover the Microsoft issues, send them to
>> the list in the next week.
>>
>> Finishing-up business.
>>
>> The AM-INFO list web page is at
>> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/am-info
>>
>> The AM-INFO list archive is at
>> http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/am-info/
>>
>> I have no idea how long these will stay in place.
>>
>> Yes, there is a complete archive of all messages back to Sun,
>> 19 Dec 1999.  That was not the beginning of the list, but
>> I do not have any base of messages before that time.
>>
>> There you will find weekly message summaries, threads, weekly
>> gzipped files, and a huge 39 MB text file of all emails in
>> chronological order, a total of 13394 messages.
>>
>> If anyone wants a zipped version of the 39 MB raw text file, I
>> will be glad to zip it up and send to them.
>>
>> I have attempted to spider/download all the files that make
>> up the archive page.  I got em, some 6,500 files, but it would
>> be a huge job set them up to be accessible on another web site.
>>
>> The AM-INFO list served a good purpose in its time, but I
>> think the world has gone on to other things.
>>
>> Gene Gaines
>> gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com
>>  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>
>> Long-timers on the AM-INFO list will recall this email from
>> December 1999:
>>
>>
>> Subject: [Am-info] Ralph Nader on Consumer Harm in Microsoft case
>> From: James Love love@cptech.org
>> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 19:38:23 -0500
>>
>> This is part of a talk that Ralph Nader gave to a recent
>> Open Source event in NYC.
>>
>>    Jamie Love <love@cptec.org>
>>
>> (http://www.cptech.org/ms/harm.html)
>>
>>                  Consumer Harm in the Microsoft Case
>>
>>                             by Ralph Nader
>>
>>                               Address to
>>               The Bazaar - An Open Source Software Event
>>                           New York, New York
>>                           December 15, 1999
>>
>>      Every time the Microsoft antitrust case moves forward, one
>> observes a new wave of "where is the harm?" opinion articles in daily
>> newspapers, presenting Microsoft's anticompetitive practices as
>> harmful to competitors but not consumers.
>>
>>      Judge Jackson's 206 page findings of fact addressed the issue of
>> consumer harm in ways that resonated with many computer experts.
>> While Judge Jackson mentioned that Microsoft had considerable leeway
>> in terms of pricing Microsoft Windows, citing an internal Microsoft
>> memorandum comparing the benefits of a $49 or $89 price for an upgrade
>> price for Windows 98, the findings of fact devoted considerable
>> attention to the non-price issues, such as those relating to
>> innovation, choice and software quality, that are key to the Microsoft
>> case.
>>
>>      However, Judge Jackson's findings of fact are limited by the
>> scope of the government lawsuit against Microsoft, both in terms of
>> the types of anticompetitive conduct and the harm to consumers, and
>> therefore understates the harm of Microsoft's monopoly to consumers.
>> The US Department of Justice and State Attorney Generals have decided
>> to prosecute a relatively narrow case against Microsoft, largely
>> ignoring a plethora of issues relating to Microsoft's huge power in
>> the desktop applications area, including the components of Microsoft
>> Office, or the impact of its anticompetitive enterprise licensing
>> strategies.
>>
>>      We often hear from consumers who say they are harmed by
>> Microsoft's monopoly abuses.  Here are some of the complaints.
>> Because this is a meeting about Linux, a free operating system, I will
>> begin with the pricing issues.
>>
>>      Pricing Issues
>>
>>      Windows is too expensive.  The price for Microsoft Windows
>> depends upon how you buy it.  A license for Windows is often bundled
>> with a new PC.  That doesn't mean it is free -- only that the OEM has
>> paid for the license.
>>
>>      When people talk about software prices, they sometimes forget
>> that typically new technologies begin with high prices.  Television
>> sets, compact disk recorders and personal computers are only a few
>> examples of this.  Automobiles were very expensive when they were
>> first introduced, costing around $10,000, or nearly $200,000 in
>> today's dollars.  More efficient mass production was followed by much
>> lower prices.  The Ford Model T, which was produced from 1908 to 1927,
>> at one point sold for less than $260.
>>
>>      As prices for personal computers, scanners, printers and other
>> computing devices have fallen, Microsoft has been able to charge high
>> prices for many of its products.  For example, the OEM prices for
>> Windows licenses have increased, making this license an ever larger
>> share of the cost of a new computer.
>>
>>      Microsoft charges consumers a list price of $109 for an upgrade
>> of Windows 98, which is discounted by retailers to $89 -- but to get
>> this price you must already own Windows 95, so it is like a
>> maintenance fee.  The list price for a new version of Windows 98 is
>> $209.  Yahoo.com sells Windows 98 at a discount for $181.92, nearly
>> half the price of buying a new low end PC, and more than three times
>> the $49.99 price for the well reviewed BeOS.   BeOS is a
>> technologically superior operating system that suffers from a paucity
>> of third party applications, illustrating the significance of the
>> consumer lock-in with Windows.
>>
>>      In addition, Microsoft is steadily tightening the conditions on
>> licenses.  Many OEM licenses for Windows are tied to a single machine,
>> and cannot be sold or transferred to another machine, even by the
>> original owner.  Business users are facing restrictions on the use of
>> concurrent licenses, requiring them to purchase more copies than
>> before.  And for most models of PCs that consumers buy, the OEM has to
>> purchase the license, even if the end user doesn't want the software.
>>
>>      The "required to buy" Windows problem is a particular galling
>> issue for Linux users who are often actively trying to avoid using
>> Microsoft products.  After our own efforts in 1998 to push the major
>> OEMs to give consumers the chance to buy PCs without a Windows
>> license, we have seem some modest improvement, as Dell and other PC
>> manufacturers offer a limited number of PC models with Linux pre-
>> installed.  But it is still the case that nearly all of the PC models
>> sold by major OEMs, including Dell, require purchase of a Windows
>> license.
>>
>>      A consumer who has been using computers since 1995 may have
>> already purchased a half dozen or more Windows licenses.  You might
>> have begun with Windows 95a, but bought Windows 95b so you could
>> better use the large hard drives.  And then purchased one or more
>> upgrade computers, with new Windows licenses.  Then one has to
>> consider the number of computers that need licenses.  Often a person
>> may have separate PCs for work and home, plus a laptop for travel.  So
>> it isn't simply the price of Windows, it's the number of licenses for
>> Windows that you end up buying, and how often you have to pay upgrade
>> fees.
>>
>>      Microsoft forces upgrades of the operating system by introducing,
>> even between official revisions, significant changes in the OS,
>> including the important support for third party device drivers.
>> Indeed, Windows 98 is already on its "second edition."  To get what
>> are essentially bug fixes, Microsoft charges Windows 98 users $19.95,
>> plus shipping and handling, for the second edition of the same
>> product.  (Creating yet another opportunity to charge consumers more
>> money so its products will function properly).
>>
>>      Any given version of Windows becomes obsolete within a few years,
>> because it will no longer support the latest innovations in hardware.
>> This is intentional, because Microsoft's biggest "competitor" in the
>> OS market is its installed base of users who have already purchased
>> Windows.  Microsoft forces consumers to buy what is essentially the
>> same product again and again.
>>
>>      In 1997, analysts said that Microsoft had a ninety-five percent
>> share of global revenues for sales of office suites.  Microsoft Office
>> has become the global standard for word processing, spreadsheets and
>> other desktop productivity applications.  The pricing for MS Office is
>> high.  Microsoft's Office 2000 "standard" edition lists for $499, with
>> a "street" price of $399. Even an upgrade to Office 2000 Standard has
>> a list price of $249, and a discounted price of $195 - and this
>> assumes you have already purchased the Microsoft Office before.
>>
>>      The "premium" version of MS Office is now priced at $799, or $449
>> for an upgrade version.
>>
>>      These prices are much higher than the prices for Corel's Office
>> 200 suite, which features WordPerfect.  For example, the list price
>> for an upgrade of Corel's Standard Office 2000 suite lists for $99,
>> about 40 percent of the Microsoft list price.  (And discounts for
>> about $79, about 40 percent of the Microsoft discounted price).
>>
>>      Microsoft can command hefty prices for its Office Suite because
>> consumers are often forced to upgrade - simply to read documents they
>> receive from others.  Microsoft is constantly changing document
>> formats so that owners of older versions of Microsoft Office cannot
>> read the newer documents.  Again, Microsoft's main competitor is its
>> own base of installed users.  And, here too Microsoft is a tough
>> adversary, using interoperability and compatibility as weapons, to
>> force upgrades and generate more earnings for Microsoft.
>>
>>      Millions of computer users who have perfectly functional copies
>> of Microsoft Office 95 found it impossible to read documents prepared
>> in Office 97, and one anticipates a new round of compatibility issues
>> with Office 2000.
>>
>>      Microsoft knows that most consumers have little use for the
>> endless expansion of word processor features, particularly as the
>> world has come to rely upon the much simpler formats for information
>> used in electronic mail.  Moreover, the newer versions nearly always
>> contain new bugs, and necessitate more learning, and spark new
>> predatory attacks on non-Microsoft products.
>>
>>      Plus, as MS Office and Windows become ever larger, they require
>> huge increases in computing resources.  For consumers this often means
>> a costly and time consuming hardware upgrade -- an event highly
>> correlated with losses of user data.  But for Microsoft, a hardware
>> upgrade is usually just another source of revenue -- as nearly every
>> new PC ships with a new license for Windows and other Microsoft
>> software.
>>
>>      One feature of Microsoft's pricing is the huge difference between
>> its list prices and the prices paid by large buyers, including OEMs,
>> big corporations, governments or universities.  Microsoft knows that
>> these large buyers need licenses to Microsoft products, and that they
>> don't want to pay the high list prices.  All of these large buyers get
>> Microsoft products at significant discounts.  However, for many big
>> users, Microsoft insists on "enterprise" type licenses, which
>> effectively force big organizations to buy licenses for many products
>> for all employees (or students).  When Microsoft gives an organization
>> a blanket license for Windows and Office, they make it next to
>> impossible for rivals to compete, since the organization has already
>> paid Microsoft a license fee for all the computer users.  Microsoft's
>> pricing strategies are designed to give organizations no realistic
>> options, if they want to avoid sky high list prices for Microsoft
>> Office and Windows.
>>
>>      This is also an issue for the OEMs, since the price of software
>> is a significant component of cost in the highly competitive PC
>> market.  Microsoft can use the threat of higher prices for OEM
>> licenses -- for Windows or Office -- to discipline OEMs, and reduce
>> opportunities for Microsoft competitors.
>>
>>      Non-Pricing Issues
>>
>>      While the pricing issues are an important measure of the cost of
>> the Microsoft monopoly, we hear more often from consumers about non-
>> price issues, including many of the non-price issues raised by Judge
>> Jackson.
>>
>>      The most common complaint is that Microsoft crashes.  "At least
>> once a day," according to many Microsoft Windows users.  We also hear
>> countless complaints that Microsoft attacks non-Microsoft products, so
>> they don't work.  For example, when Microsoft released its Windows
>> Media player, as a competitor against the RealAudio player, consumers
>> wrote to say it disabled dozens of third party multimedia software
>> programs.  Little wonder that people call Microsoft's Internet
>> Explorer, the "Internet Exploder," because it attacks and disables an
>> unpredictable number of non-Microsoft applications.
>>
>>      The documents in the Microsoft trial shed new light on the
>> seemingly endless compatibility and interoperability problems with
>> Windows and Microsoft Office.  When Microsoft executives proposed
>> making "running any other browser . . . a jolting experience," they
>> were simply adding yet another example of the "DOS isn't done until
>> Lotus won't run," corporate legacy.
>>
>>      Microsoft could never have succeeded as a software company if its
>> intentions to sabotage third party products were known earlier, before
>> consumers and third party developers invested billions of dollars and
>> countless hours around the Windows platform.
>>
>>      Even before you consider issues surrounding deliberate hostility
>> to users, you have the typical problem of a monopoly that can get away
>> with poor products.  Because it is so costly and difficult to migrate
>> to a new platform, Microsoft can succeed even when its core products
>> suffer hugely from poor stability, limited interoperabilty, and
>> endless security problems.  The fact that millions of users tolerate
>> daily crashes of Windows says volumes about the costs of migration
>> away from Windows.
>>
>>      But, as Judge Jackson points out, and as most computer experts
>> know, not all of the quality problems are innocent.  In its internal
>> emails and by countless examples, Microsoft has demonstrated that it
>> believes it benefits when consumers cannot make competitor's products
>> work correctly.  Microsoft has a range of methods to undermine its
>> competitor's products.  When it does not use deliberate sabotage, it
>> can withhold important technical information or refuse to license
>> technology to its competitors, such as when it refused to permit
>> Netscape to distribute a utility to log-on to Internet Service
>> Providers, or when it withholds or unexpectedly changes applications
>> programming interfaces and data file formats.
>>
>>      Microsoft can also destroy the quality of rival software by using
>> predatory business practices, such as the enterprise licensing of
>> Windows and MS Office, exclusionary OEM and ISP licensing, or bundling
>> of products with "must have" Windows and Office products.
>>
>>      When Netscape cannot effectively distribute its browser through
>> ISP or OEM channels, and when Microsoft's Internet Explorer product is
>> bundled in with Windows and MS Office, Netscape can no longer justify
>> continued R&D in the product. This harms consumers who prefer
>> Netscape. When Microsoft bundles Outlook Express, its personal
>> information manager and email client, into Windows, millions of users
>> who relied upon rival products, like ECCO Pro, were stranded when
>> their products were abandoned by publishers who could not compete with
>> a bundled product having a zero marginal cost to consumers.  And there
>> are countless other examples of this in the software market.
>>
>>      Despite the colossal sums of money being invested in ecommerce
>> ventures, there is very little investment for desktop productivity
>> software.  And while the stock market seems crazy about some Linux
>> stocks, and with all due respect to this gathering, and in light on
>> the fact that we are using Linux extensively in our offices, Linux is
>> still primarily a server technology, without significant penetration
>> in the PC "client" space.   For this to change, there will have to be
>> considerable improvements in Linux documentation and in Linux desktop
>> applications.
>>
>>      For most PC users, there is a steadily shrinking number of
>> choices for a growing number of important applications.  Microsoft is
>> squeezing the life out of markets for word processors, spreadsheets,
>> desktop database software, presentation graphics, personal information
>> managers, email clients and Internet browsers -- the applications that
>> most computer users need.
>>
>>      Some observers, such as Robert J. Samuelson, seem to think that
>> Microsoft has provided a public service.  By eliminating competitors,
>> Microsoft gives everyone a common standard, and making life simpler
>> has benefits, Samuelson says.
>>
>>      I think most people here see the poverty of this analysis.  There
>> are, of course, alternative methods of setting standards than relying
>> upon a private monopoly.  The Internet is a powerful and relevant
>> example of how a non-monopolistic standard can facilitate enormous
>> innovation.  And, as pointed out in Judge Jackson's findings of fact,
>> Microsoft has sought to crush third party technologies, such as Java,
>> that create cross platform standards that Microsoft does not control.
>>
>>      The free software movement actively embraces a more open approach
>> to software development.  A distribution of Linux isn't the creation
>> of a single firm.  It is a collection of hundreds of programs
>> developed by different individuals and groups, that work together.
>> The disclosure of the source code is designed to make it easier to
>> design software programs that work together, to solve user problems.
>> There is competition among distributions of Linux, and users can
>> choose alternative graphical user interfaces, programming tools,
>> utilities and applications.  As described in the so called Halloween
>> memorandums, Microsoft's response to the popularity of Linux is to
>> seek ways to cripple interoperability, by deploying proprietary and
>> patented software interfaces.  And so far, Microsoft has resisted
>> efforts by OEMs to ship computers ready to dual boot Windows and Linux
>> or Windows and BeOS.
>>
>>      There are, of course, huge costs associated with forcing everyone
>> into a software monoculture.  Some of the issues concern security.
>> Microsoft's security breach of the week wouldn't be such a huge
>> problem if its software wasn't so ubiquitous.  But this is only one of
>> many issues.
>>
>>      There are also large costs associated with the disappearance of
>> the products that Microsoft crushes.  In the beginning, Microsoft had
>> a tiny presence in desktop applications, and businesses and
>> individuals invested money and time around non-Microsoft products.
>> The forced migration to Microsoft's Johnny-come-lately imitations is
>> costly.
>>
>>      Consumers value choice, about a wide range of software
>> characteristics.  WordPerfect and Microsoft Word have different
>> approaches to document management.  Netscape Navigator,  Microsoft
>> Explorer and Opera appeal to differ users.  Every software product has
>> its own fans and its own critics.  Robert Samuelson seems to think of
>> this as an inefficiency, but the contrary is true.  A "one size fits
>> all" world harms consumers, and lowers productivity.
>>
>>      Competition among software products leads to innovation and
>> improvements in software quality.  This competition moves the industry
>> to solve the problems consumers face, and leads to more productive and
>> reliable products.  Indeed, perhaps the most important consideration
>> is that Microsoft is not a leader in product development -- it is an
>> imitator, and this is the most significant harm to consumers -- the
>> stifling of innovations that we never see.   As pointed out by Judge
>> Jackson, even Intel, the other half of Wintel, was forced by Microsoft
>> to stop development of a promising new multimedia technology.
>>
>>      We recognize that in software markets, there may be cases where
>> the market coalesces around a single product with a large market
>> share.  But it is one thing for that decision to be made on the basis
>> of competition for consumer satisfaction, based upon product quality
>> and price, and something else when consumers are forced to pick
>> Microsoft, by an endless array of underhanded, coercive and non-
>> meritorious tactics.  Consumers are harmed when there is no real
>> choice, except to succumb to the Microsoft Borg.
>>
>>      Thank you.
>>
>>
>> For more information, see http://www.cptech.org/ms
>>
>> Contact Ralph Nader at ralph@essential.org
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> James Love / Director, Consumer Project on Technology
>> http://www.cptech.org / love@cptech.org
>> P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
>> voice 202.387.8030 / fax 202.234.5176
>>
>>
>>
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