4 ms·

What, like the Android monopoly, the Google monopoly, the Facebook monopoly, and so on? Please look up power laws... Microsoft won the market fair and square (

by scholia 10y ago

What, like the Android monopoly, the Google monopoly, the Facebook monopoly, and so on? Please look up power laws... Microsoft won the market fair and square (against an even more evil and much larger monopolist), and Linux has been built on the market created by Microsoft's de facto standards and the economies of scale that Windows has generated.

marvy 10y ago
Did you read the article I linked to? It wasn't fair and square. MS gave the PC makers a discount with strings attached: don't sell PCs that can dual-boot into another OS. I think you can agree this is pretty anti-competitive behavior.
- scholia 10y ago
  No, I certainly don't agree with that. Anybody can dual boot their PC, if they install the second OS themselves. Apple took exactly the same view of BeOS, which had failed to sell BeBoxes. All discounts have strings attached. You either want the deal or you don't. "Anti-competitive" in this case simply means "not giving the competition a free ride". Companies tried to sell Linux and Unix PCs in competition with Windows, and they failed. Some went out of business. IBM tried to sell OS/2 systems and failed -- it ended up paying to have OS/2 taken off its PCs and Windows installed, even though OS/2 ran Windows. Apple ended up getting bailed out by Microsoft just to keep it alive. You can lie to yourself for as long as you like, but it would be better to face the fact that people wanted Windows, and they didn't want the alternatives available at the time.