3 ms·
You may personally think vendor lock-in is a fair tactic but if you bother to do a little research you'll find some significant court decisions opposing that vi
by bayareaguy 18y ago
You may personally think vendor lock-in is a fair tactic but if you bother to do a little research you'll find some significant court decisions opposing that view (including the one against MS).
Still, I'm a little confused that you see no relationship between monopolies and licensing given that MS was convicted of abusing its monopoly to dictate licensing terms to OEMs.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI'm certainly not saying that Microsoft played entirely by the books. They clearly didn't. They went well beyond standard vendor lock-in. Things like lock-in that are considered fair game in a competitive market are not when a monopoly is involved. I just don't think it's fair to blame proprietary software for Microsoft's sins.
- bayareaguy 18y agoMicrosoft is not the only sinner, they are just the most publicized one. The profit made by Microsoft and the others in the Software Top 100 - http://www.softwaretop100.org/list.php?page=1 http://www.softwaretop100.org/list.php?page=1 is probably several times higher than it would be if not for lock-in and other anti-competitive practices. Those unfair profits are effectively a hardware tax which transfer wealth away from the consumers and businesses who would have presumably spent it on their own interests.