3 ms·

Past examples also such because they are bad examples. The Antitrust case against IBM was dropped because it dragged on so long and by the end IBM had lost the

by nickik 12y ago

Past examples also such because they are bad examples. The Antitrust case against IBM was dropped because it dragged on so long and by the end IBM had lost the monopoly allready. The real story is the guy who was going after IBM died and nobody else was perticularly intrested in keeping it going. The same goes for microsoft, I dont think the antitrust laws led to the weaker market position it now has. There product sucked, people moved on, and forced microsoft to up there game.

wpietri 12y ago
Internet Explorer had greater than 90% market share at the peak, and Microsoft was vigorously arguing that it was such an integrated part of the operating system that having a choice was impossible. The whole problem with monopolies is that it doesn't matter if their product sucks because you don't really have any other options. People can only move on if they have a choice.
- justanotheracc 12y ago
  I am somewhat amazed by how long it is taking the population to move away from Windows, now that there are real choices for mainstream users (Linux Mint, OSX). The look of Linux Mint feels especially Windows XP/7-ish, which is probably why I and others feel so comfortable with it.
  - nickik 12y ago
    Why would you assume that everybody wnat to move away from microsoft? Most people are ok, they dont have a deep hate for microsoft and just wait until they can move away from it. I tried to get people other things but usually they just prefered windows in the end. Sure part is familiarity but not all of it.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      I guess it's price (osx) and drivers (Linux). God, everyone would be much better off if we just moved to FOSS OS's.
- nickik 12y ago
  The hole court case was about bundling, nowdays everybody does that. Can you imagen any operating system beeing sold without preinstalled browser? Also how would people go about downloading the other browser if there was not internet explorer? When apple had much of the smartphone market, there was not antitrust against them, but there was a browser on that phone. Also if you cant put any software on a computer you sell, then the logical conclusion is that we should only be allowed to sell pre installed kernals, everything else would be abusing monopoly position (assuming there is a high market share in the OS). Microsoft probebly had 99% market share in defragmentation tools back then as well. The faulty assumition is that the product is the operating system, in reality the product is more then just the operating system its a hole bundle of diffrent software.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > The hole[sic] court case was about bundling, nowdays[sic] everybody does that. Can you imagen[sic] any operating system beeing[sic] sold without preinstalled browser? The case was in the days when browsers were much less interoperable. There was a real concern that bundling IE would make it easy for MS to make everyone buy IIS, because that would be the best server to use to serve sites for IE. It didn't turn out that way for a variety of reasons (among them the rise of Mozilla, impossible to predict at the time, and the amazing growth of Apache), but that doesn't mean the lawsuit was wrong, knowing what we did at the time. > Also how would people go about downloading the other browser if there was not internet explorer? ftp.mozilla.org or similar; BSD FTP ships with pretty much any computer.
    - nickik 12y ago
      Its the nature of markets and competition that you dont always know whats going to happen. Is it your opinion that whenever something might happen, befor it actually happens the state should stop it? Thats kind like the movie minority report. Even if that had happened, they could have forced the competition to be more like IE but they could still have added features. It was the same with IBM, everybody was afraid they would take over the world and explained why they need to be stopped, but things happend and they didn't. Thats pretty much the story of every single case, were some tech company seams like its talking over the world. Knowdays facebook seams to be the big baddy that need to be stopped. People are just afraid because the dont have the imagination to draw up alternatives. All I see its companys growing and shriking and in 99.99% of the cases it not because of some antitrust laws. > ftp.mozilla.org or similar; BSD FTP ships with pretty much any computer. How many people, non nerds, know what FTP is? How many know that the have a FTP programm on there computer and how many would have known were and how to look for other browsers?

by nickik 12y ago

wpietri 12y ago

Internet Explorer had greater than 90% market share at the peak, and Microsoft was vigorously arguing that it was such an integrated part of the operating system that having a choice was impossible. The whole problem with monopolies is that it doesn't matter if their product sucks because you don't really have any other options. People can only move on if they have a choice.

justanotheracc 12y ago
I am somewhat amazed by how long it is taking the population to move away from Windows, now that there are real choices for mainstream users (Linux Mint, OSX). The look of Linux Mint feels especially Windows XP/7-ish, which is probably why I and others feel so comfortable with it.
- nickik 12y ago
  Why would you assume that everybody wnat to move away from microsoft? Most people are ok, they dont have a deep hate for microsoft and just wait until they can move away from it. I tried to get people other things but usually they just prefered windows in the end. Sure part is familiarity but not all of it.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    I guess it's price (osx) and drivers (Linux). God, everyone would be much better off if we just moved to FOSS OS's.
nickik 12y ago
The hole court case was about bundling, nowdays everybody does that. Can you imagen any operating system beeing sold without preinstalled browser? Also how would people go about downloading the other browser if there was not internet explorer? When apple had much of the smartphone market, there was not antitrust against them, but there was a browser on that phone. Also if you cant put any software on a computer you sell, then the logical conclusion is that we should only be allowed to sell pre installed kernals, everything else would be abusing monopoly position (assuming there is a high market share in the OS). Microsoft probebly had 99% market share in defragmentation tools back then as well. The faulty assumition is that the product is the operating system, in reality the product is more then just the operating system its a hole bundle of diffrent software.
- lmm 12y ago
  > The hole[sic] court case was about bundling, nowdays[sic] everybody does that. Can you imagen[sic] any operating system beeing[sic] sold without preinstalled browser? The case was in the days when browsers were much less interoperable. There was a real concern that bundling IE would make it easy for MS to make everyone buy IIS, because that would be the best server to use to serve sites for IE. It didn't turn out that way for a variety of reasons (among them the rise of Mozilla, impossible to predict at the time, and the amazing growth of Apache), but that doesn't mean the lawsuit was wrong, knowing what we did at the time. > Also how would people go about downloading the other browser if there was not internet explorer? ftp.mozilla.org or similar; BSD FTP ships with pretty much any computer.
  - nickik 12y ago
    Its the nature of markets and competition that you dont always know whats going to happen. Is it your opinion that whenever something might happen, befor it actually happens the state should stop it? Thats kind like the movie minority report. Even if that had happened, they could have forced the competition to be more like IE but they could still have added features. It was the same with IBM, everybody was afraid they would take over the world and explained why they need to be stopped, but things happend and they didn't. Thats pretty much the story of every single case, were some tech company seams like its talking over the world. Knowdays facebook seams to be the big baddy that need to be stopped. People are just afraid because the dont have the imagination to draw up alternatives. All I see its companys growing and shriking and in 99.99% of the cases it not because of some antitrust laws. > ftp.mozilla.org or similar; BSD FTP ships with pretty much any computer. How many people, non nerds, know what FTP is? How many know that the have a FTP programm on there computer and how many would have known were and how to look for other browsers?