On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 03:16 -0500, Myth User wrote: > Microsoft was never "convicted" (I think you mean "found liable" but they > weren't found liable either. ) in the US DoJ case. > http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm > > Microsoft was never said to be a monopoly by the DoJ > http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm > > You don't know or you are pretending not to know what a monopoly is. > http://www.dictionary.com </lurk mode> Just for reference, I've silently watched this thread for a while as I continue running FC5T3, anticipate the final FC5 and install Windows Vista CTP Build 5308 (yes, I'm officially in the Vista Beta program) in a VM under VMware Workstation 5.5. I also work for a company that is a strong Microsoft partner (along with Cisco, EMC and others) and I make very good $$$ selling Microsoft solutions, with a most recent focus on SharePoint and EPM (Project Server, etc.). Then again, I make very good $$$ selling solutions from my company's other partners too... Myth User, you're letting your passion get in the way of facts. Putting on my MBA hat for a moment, I have to point out that many of your "facts" and supporting references are in error. For example (and this is just one), while the dictionary.com definition of monopoly you point to defines it is one company exerting exclusive power in a market, any college Economics 101 course will tell you that this is an incomplete and unrealistic definition. In reality, when any company dominates in a market (because of the Standard Oil suits from the early 1900's, the threshold is usually set at around 60% market share), they are considered to have monopoly power in that market. Such companies are then referred to as de-facto monopolies or just monopolies. See Wikipedia's definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly) for more info. Quoting directly from it (for those who prefer to read it here): "Industries which are dominated by a single firm may allow the firm to act as a near-monopoly or "de facto monopoly", a practice known in economics as monopolistic competition. Common historical examples arguably include corporations such as Microsoft and Standard Oil (Standard's market share of refining was 64% in competition with over 100 other refiners at the time of the trial that resulted in the government-forced breakup)." With 90% plus market share in the desktop OS market, Microsoft most certainly qualifies, and was legally defined as a monopoly as a finding of fact in the DOJ case. They also exhibit the behaviors typical of monopolies of this type. In addition, Microsoft was found liable under US anti-trust laws of abusing their monopoly power (again, another finding of fact in the case). To be clear, it's not illegal to have monopoly power in a market, but anti-trust laws are very specific in that, if you have such power in a market, you are not allowed to engage in certain practices that you otherwise might be able to do. This includes things like selling your product below its marginal cost to keep competitors from entering the market, raising the barriers to entry into the market through things like predatory pricing (ex. Microsoft's per system licensing scheme for HW vendors that essentially raised the price of competing operating systems by the price of the Windows license) and leveraging monopoly power in one defined market to gain control in a second market. Microsoft's bundling of IE with Windows to kill off Netscape is a classic example here. In plain US English, even the trade magazines use the vernacular that Microsoft was "convicted" of being an abusive monopoly. You are indeed splitting hairs, and when confronted with this in a question, prefer to answer the question with other questions. This is a clear sign that you are unable to support your notion fully and your tactics would cause you to lose in debate class. I could go on with other examples of erroneous/inaccurate statements you have made and tried to support, but this thread has gone far enough off track already. I think your passion for Windows and Microsoft software reveals a potential for baiting and trolling, even if it's unintended. You may use and like Fedora, but you clearly look to it as a "second class citizen" in your world. You have a right to do so along with a right to your opinion, but you don't have a right to your own set of facts, or to present incomplete definitions as if they were a complete set of facts. This will be my only post on this thread. I'm now going back to supporting Fedora on this list. Can the rest of us do the same? Puuleeeze....? Cheers, Chris (and yes, that's my real name and e-mail address. Don't abuse it.) <lurk mode> -- ====================== "Never murder a man when he's busy committing suicide." -- Woodrow Wilson
