🚀 go-pugleaf

In <405p0e$c94...@hillsc.phibred.com>, hil...@phibred.com (Charlie Hills) writes:
>>I also tend not to trust users whose sigs indicate they have an
>>established agenda.
>>
>>"An evil monopolistic corporation"- which one ISN'T?!?
>>
>>Had a Coke lately?  Driven in a GM car?  Watched NBC?  Room
>>illuminated by a GE lightbulb?
>
>I was also wondering about that too.  Isn't the point of capitalism
>to make money?  Seems like there's a lot of Microsoft bashing going
>on, and all because they did what EVERY for-profit company in the
>free world wants to do: make money.  :)

Well, depends. If you meet the richest robber in the world, who happens to have 
a *lot* of money, that is o.k. with you, isn't it ? A *true* sign of free 
capitalism (i.e. the stronger, the smarter wins, no matter what means he uses).

So the equation holds for you

            earn a lot of money = 
            don't question the fairness of earning it =
            free capitalism ???

NOT !

In a *civilized* society, the rules by which competitors are allowed to compete
with each other, are *regulated* to assure fairness among all *and* to shelter
consumers from monopolistic robbing companies (and to shelter small companies 
from being unfairly sweeped away by the big and mighty ones).

These rules of fairness depend on the people and their lawmakers (politicians). 
Ever wondered why *the* capitalistic society, the United States of America, has 
laws *against* monopolies ?

The technologies surrounding the PC revolution are extremely innovative and fast
paced, the life time of "software goods" extremely short (12 - 18 months).
Hence, trying to assure fairness in the hyperdynamic SW market with pale,
longlasting procedures which are decades old in concept is inadequate and hurts
the competitiveness in that important segment:  look how WordPerfect was sold,
because it was not able to compete with the *preloaded* MS-Office anymore.  as
well as their office product, as well as Lotus' office product, BTW.  And all of
this happens, *while* the DoJ is doing its stunt with MS to ensure a "fairer"
behaviour of MS (the only one really upset in this procedure and MS's ruthless
anti-competetive market behaviour was judge Sporkin).

MS is doing the same stunt again with MS-Network.  *No* other competitor *can*
compete, hence the market mechanisms are not working anymore.  MS is a classique
monopolist *leveraging* its monopolistic status into any interesting (read money
making) market segment coming to its attention.  And in the age of
communications and the important role of PCs it is *every* aspect of life (just
think of the attempt to buy Intuit; now MS will give its MS-Money away for free
via MS-Net until October, in order to become the monopolist in this area too, as
they did not succeed in buying out its only, successful competitor.  Or take a
look at FoxProf, Microsoft could not compete with them, hence they bought the
entire company, hence buying out the market competition!).

Ever looked about the "success" story of Windows itself ?  The majority of
people did *not* buy it, when they had a *choice*.  Windows 1.01 was a
catastrophe, introduced in 1985 !  Windows 2.0 was not accepted, Windows 2.11
was the first version, making *modest* sales in the end-user market.  Then,
Microsoft *forced* its OEM-customers (PC customers dependent on getting MS-DOS
for their PCs) to *bundle* Windows 3.0 (startin 1990) with DOS.  And slowly
Windows became an issue in the market, because it was *preloaded* on every PC.
Buyers on the "free" market had *no* choice, but to buy the PCs with whatever
the manufacturer preloaded with it.  You wouldn't be able to buy a PC and ask
for a refund for the preinstalled Windows, if you didn't want to use it.  Free
capitalism ?  Sorry, no.  It is a market controlled solely by the monopolist
Microsoft.

Then Microsoft did the same stunt with MS Works and thereafter MS Office:  force
its OEM customers to *preload* and *prepay* for MS applications, *without*
giving the customers a *choice*.  Great free market (free capitalism), isn't it?

Look at MS-Bob:  the majority of people (potential customers) are *not* buying
it, as long as they have a *choice*. Well, MS starts to have Bob preloaded ...

MS products are not being *bought* by the majority of the people by their merits
alone !  (In reality, in almost any application segment there are technological
*better* applications available by other companies in theory, in practice they
are going the way of bankruptcy as the market via which they dealt directly with
the customers has gone.)  Hence the barbarian act of Microsoft to exclude the
free market, by *forcing* its OEM-customers (who are totally dependent on
Microsoft) to *preload* and *prepay* MS-applications *without* asking the users
whether they want it or not.  Free capitalism ?  Fair market rules ?  Give me a
break, the operating system *and* application market has been moved away from
the customers to OEMs, and the OEMs are *controlled* by Microsoft !  They even
not dare to *not* sign a treaty with Microsoft, which allows Microsoft to
illegally use technology developed and devised by its OEM customers !

And then, by new releases of Windows, Microsoft all of a sudden *forces* its
end-user customers to *upgrade* for money to the new applications, because the
old ones do not work flawlessly anymore; no matter whether the customer
originally intended to upgrade or not.  So, now the customers are *forced* to
*pay* for upgrades of their Microsoft applications, if they dare to buy a new
computer, which has Win95 installed.

Free capitalism ?  Markets playing by fair rules ?  Laws to fight innovative
forms of ("electronic") monopolisms ?

Charlie, it seems you are *glad*

        - that Windows 95 comes along, so you buy it - out of your pocket,

        - in case you have not enough memory, you pay for another 4 or 8 MB - 
          out of your pocket,

        - in case you have not enough hard disk space available, you pay for
          another couple of x00 MBs - out of your pocket, then

        - you *love* to pay for working utilities (again) - out of your pocket,

        - you *love* to pay for another upgrade to Office 95 - out of your 
          pocket, and it seems,

        - you love that expensive Win95 operating system, which is not capable 
          of sheltering its applications from each other (you like the risk to 
          test whether all of your apps are bullet-proof), not even able to
          guarantee *real multitasking* !

Well, and then you *love* that Microsoft makes so much money out of *your*
pocket and praise it for being so "capitalistic".  You do not mind that no
serious competitor in the application area is left over for Microsoft, so
everyone else has to buy the same MS Office as you own.  *That* is some "free"
and "open" market ! That is *great* for choices in the future.

I would like to have you as a customer:  I would like to get your money into my
purse by selling you *anything* forcing you to pay me even more money, because
of my initial sale to you.  NOT!

---rony
P.S.:  Micrografx announced it would discontinue its presentation package
"Charisma", because "it is not possible to compete with Microsoft".  Isn't this
a nice "free", "capitalistic" market, where competition drives down the prices,
as Microsoft, Mr.  Doyle and the President of the US like to claim (and at the
same time watching Microsoft effectively doubling the fees for MS-Office for
corporations, now that they arrived at a 85 % market share with unfair and
monopolistic sales practices) ?