A former Gateway executive recently testified (NY Times login required) that Microsoft punishes PC clone manufacturers like Gateway for developing rival products. This was i.e. done by reducing discounts Gateway received for the Windows operating system. Gateway at a time was developing a new Amiga computer, but all of the sudden this ambitious project was cancelled, reliable sources (read the comments section of this article I recently wrote for OSNews) have stated Microsoft to be the reason behind this sudden move. My opinion: A good example of how Microsoft stifled technological progress within the computer industry these last 10 years. Hopefully people will start to understand why it has taken the Amiga community this long to get a new Amiga computer onto the market and why PC manufacturers left Amiga technology in the cold when the classic still was clearly superior technology compared to Microsoft’s offerings.
That is a great example of ms stifling alternate oses. I can’t wait for the first anti-ms post calling it illegal though
.
I’m not sure IF it is illegal or not.
I’m sure that I have another reason to hate MS ^^
>>I can’t wait for the first anti-ms post calling it illegal though
.<<
How about the first pro-ms post calling it illegal?!
🙂
damn either I’m too tired (can’t seem to fall asleep) or that was really funny. going by your previous posts I’m guessing the former
;p
whats your grudge against ms? did you interview for a job there and get turned down or something? Show me the company that doesn’t use market position to hold market position (consumer electronic companies do similar things all the time, so do consoles games, books, etc. but where they strong arm for shelf spots windows strong arms for hard drives), and I’ll show you the company that doesn’t survive on top long (if apple strong armed stores instead of computer makers they could still be the top os, but we’ll never know). If you want to hate a company hate aol, and I’m not talking for the geeky reason that their software sucks, and has more ads then free isps, but for the fact that when they bought timewarner (or merged, whichever it is notice which name comes first) they shutdown all the warner brothers stores because they didn’t make enough money. They all turned a great profit (by retail standards), and since they were in the largest malls they were free advertising for the company, but because aol makes so much profit on the isp side the retail profits seemed worthless. They shutdown all the stores, hundreds of people out of work, all because they weren’t making the company *enough* money. ms may be damn underhanded, but I doubt they’d shut down a profitable portion of their business, putting people out of work, just because the profits weren’t enough.
I like it first they didn’t do that to yah thed did that but it wasn’t illegal know yah probally illegal but everones does it!
Of coure the argument on the other side of the fence ar just as religous and wishy washy!
Of course if everything was fair MS would probally win but the battle wouldn’t be nearlly as interesting and the technology of today would be vastly different and superior than today.
Its legal, its their *right* to sell liscenses to whatever company they want, and at any agreed upon price. Go into a little mom&pop grocery and piss off the owner, he may still sell ya what you came in for, but he’ll prolly jack up the price. Its not fair, but its legal, so drop all this but its illegal shit and face facts, no one was interested enough in an alternate os to pay the higher windows liscense fee to do it. end of story. Worst case scenario gatway (or sony or whoever else in the be example) would have to pay wholesale for eacy liscense, thats still only 70% of what you or I would have to pay at the local best buy. And my arguements aren’t religous, I’ve tried over half a dozen linux distros, be and atheos (very briefly) but I cam back to windows because as of this second its the best os for my desktop. When someone else makes one that better suits my needs I’ll switch, until then I’ll remind people to pick their os based on their needs, not on some lame ass play fair cries by a bunch of linux geeks who learned to program just cause they’re too cheap to buy software (btw I’ll laugh when all the linux distros go out of business, because you can’t make money giving away things, but then again I guess they were too busy learning to code to learn even basic marketing).
Genaldar,
take a pill … end of story. Comments like yours should be deleted by administrator, as you are far away from what news article wanted to point out …
Linux is not my favourite OS either, but why so much hatred and BS in your post?
-pekr-
MS strong-arming OEMs might not be illegal, but for its crimes of which it has been found guilty of, it should be prevented from doing this kind of thing. This leaves the OEMs wide open to distribute whatever OS they want. That way, it opens the door for competitors to create real, usable solutions instead of having Linux as the only alternative.
To make it simple, I lost too much time because of MS products, I feel that we had lost much because of the monopolistic practices.
That’s all.
The situation we are in right now is not capitalism, but corperatism. The definition of Capitalism in Economics 101 is a market where there are enough players that no one buyer or seller can inflence the market. I would venture to say most Fortune 500 companies do not qualify as Capatilist. The original Serman Anti Trust act declared all monopolies illegal. If you woke up one morning and all your competitors went away you were in vilolation. Also, any planning, trying, or coerecing to become a monoply was also illegal. In other words when MS got to 80%-90% of the market they did not have the right to enter into restrictive contracts as this would further monopoly.
Look at the real-non technical world. If GM were to actively attempt to overthrow Ford they would be hauled off to jail. They may fiercely compete, but they cannot “do the other one in”
In the technology industry, look at the ram situation. When ram dropped last year companies from korea and Taiwan were hauled into court for product “dumping” or selling below cost to capture market share. This is illegal in every industry except software where it is difficult to value it.
Now apply those same standards to MS.
They stopped playing fair a long time ago.
It IS illegal for the sole reason that MS is a monopoly. Monopolies can’t play by the same rules as everyone else. That’s the law, plain and simple.
Genaldar:
<em>Its legal, its their *right* to sell liscenses to whatever company they want, and at any agreed upon price.</em>
Hmm… I’m not sure this is so when the company selling the licenses is a monopoly and is using its leverage to stifle competition and reinforce its monopoly status.
Blah blah blah Amiga blah blah blah Amiga Amiga Amiga blah blah blah blah blah. Did I say ‘Amiga’ in this post? Better say it a few more times. Amiga Amiga Amiga.
[Contributed by Mike Amiga, I mean, Bouma.]
PS. I know ‘Amiga’ wasn’t really relevant to this story at all, but I like to mention it whenever I post a story to Slashdot and OSNews…
PPS Amiga.
[Note: this has been a rather sarcastic post from someone who actually likes Amigas…! Perhaps Mike could be given a quota for posting stories to OSNews, where he’s only allowed to mention Amiga so many times per day?]
The reason I brought this up regarding Amiga is because I often get questions about why Gateway stopped the development of their new Amiga platform. As an answer to this question, I have always given exactly the same answer as testified here by an ex-Gateway executive.
Although I have /worked with/tested/checked out most alternative OSes, never did an OS impress me as much as AmigaOS did (except for intent/AmigaDE that is). I answer lots of Amiga user questions on a weekly basis, I guess that turned me quite into an “Amiga man”. Although I`m quite well aware of most of the other things happening within the computer industry, but time currently prohibits me to concentrate on all the different OS solutions. So for now I choose to post Amiga related stuff, because this is where my specialty lies. You may note that many people have different favourites, you may have noticed many other people bringing up mostly BeOS, FreeBSD or Linux related topics, because this is most within the fields of their interests. <zealot>Probably because they never were really exposed to AmigaOS or something.</zealot>
I thought all companies .. ie intel give discounts when OEMS just sell 1 product. It would be interseting to see what other companies like SUN etc put in their licensing agreements. Perhaps MS should have special rules… but dont penalise me (being a windows users) for my choice of operating system. MS made money through selling software to users such as me, so dont take my money and waste it. Dont prevent my operating system from getting better pls.
Is it OK for others to lost job because of their employer went bancrupt due to MS business practise as long as MS employee get richer?
<blockquote type=”cite”>The definition of Capitalism in Economics 101 is a market where there are enough players that no one buyer or seller can inflence the market.</blockquote>Er, no. That’s the definition of Perfect Competition. Capitalism and Perfect Competition are not the same. Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, as opposed to Communism, where the means of production are not owned by anyone, or Socialism, which is where the Europeans complain that the Americans make all the money.
You appear to have attached your own political ideas to the word “corporatism”, which has an actual technical definition that in no way corresponds to your use thereof.
That doesn’t mean I disagree with the rest of what you say; I’m just saying if you’re going to use big words, be sure you know what they mean.
I’d check “can a mom and pop store jackup prices just for you because they don’t like you”
I don’t think so! it is ileagal just like jacking up price because of a persons race/gender/religion ect.!!!
In many cases its hard to prove and substantuate but if anyone is charging you different that someone else they better be able to prove a legal reason why!
Being a monopoly is legal. “Anti-trust” actions are taken against companies which have monopoly power in one market and are trying to use that power to control another market. The canonical example was the Standard Oil Trust, which accounted for most oil distribution and retail sales in the country at one point–and was essentially using that power to subvert the market, by telling oil producers that Standard Oil would tell them what prices they were going to pay. This is, of course, an inversion of the way markets are supposed to work–suppliers are supposed to set prices based on demand, even if there’s room for negotiation with buyers. Standard Oil’s stated goal was to completely separate price from demand, and until they were broken up they were successful: when you adjust for inflation, gasoline prices at the pump have never been as high as they were when SO was at the height of their power, even though wholesale prices for crude were close to their lowest.
In other words, controlling oil distribution wasn’t the issue; setting the prices on both ends of their transactions was. Oil production was successfully argued to be a separate market from oil distribution/retail.
So, the illegalities Microsoft’s accused of can’t be solely “being a monopoly”; it’s whether they use their monopoly power in the operating system market to squelch competition in another market in some fashion.
And, no, you’re not free to just say, “List price for that candy is 65 cents but for you it’s four bucks.” That’s called “discrimination” and it falls under other laws. When it comes to Microsoft’s deals with vendors, a key issue might be whether they change contract terms in mid-contract, and even what those terms are. This also falls under anti-trust laws simply because monopolies are treated differently: restaurants can sign exclusive contracts with Coke or Pepsi, but if Coke had 90% of the soft drink market, there’s a good chance they <em>wouldn’t</em> be allowed to enforce such contracts.
Is that fair? It depends on how you look at it. If you honestly believe the theoretical advantage of a market economy comes from competition, you have to accept that sometimes you need regulation to ensure that competition remains practical. Without it, competitors will hit a point–like Microsoft has, arguably–where the best way to compete becomes using your resources to prevent potential competitors from having sufficient access to the market to threaten your market share.
Microsoft has the powers given it by it’s monopolistic position, and this is the exact, clear example of how those powers can be misused.
Discrimination, as your using it, only applies if you discriminate on race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation or religion. If you do it cause a guys an ass then its legal (of course if he can convince a jury you did it because he’s an albino transexual with 1 leg, in a wheel chair then your fooked).
As for special rules being used against ms that in and of itself would be discrimination and illegal.
show me the bs? all I did was point out the facts that all the cries of illegal were wrong and give examples to prove it. As for hatred for alternate oses I have none, i just get tired of people blaming their lack of distribution on ms, instead of realizing its because windows is better for newbs and newbs are the ones who buy pcs from vendors (for the most part). and if my post is “far away from what news article wanted to point out”, what is yours?
I’ve lost no time do to windows, I have lost a ton of time due to linux (caldera screwed up my windows install twice and so did mandrake). Guess linux owes me something then huh?
wtf did you go to school? That isn’t the definition of capitalism or corporitism. Jeeze go to your local highschool and retake economics.
Coke does have a monopoly in the softdrink market (80% of soft drinks sold world wide are coke). Granted thats out of the legal range of the us courts, but I don’t believe antitrust laws decree as to what market the monopoly is in can affect its monopoly status (if you own the main grocery store chain in town it makes you a monopoly, but what about neighborhoods where you have competition?). I agree though about the key point of when the change was made, but its a moot point since this was just a “threat” of a change (most likely in the next contract). Besides antitrust laws are pretty hit or miss (local cable companies, local phone companies, local gas companies had government *forced* monopolies until recently, so i guess it all depends on how good your lobbyists are).
> (80% of soft drinks sold world wide are coke)
Coca Cola doesn`t have a monopoly, nowhere similar to how Microsoft is controlling (and has been holding back) the computing industry. Some facts:
1) There are several other popular beverages available. i.e. Tea, Coffee, Orange Juice, Milk or Beer.
2) Almost anywhere Coca Cola is sold, several alternative softdrinks are available as well.
3) Coca Cola isn`t even the only Cola sold, i.e. you can choose Pepsi or several other popular local variants.
Luckily there doesn`t exist a softdrink monopoly, because I personally don`t like softdrinks. I do use Windows though despite disliking the operating system. I use it solely, because I want to use some high quality 3rd party applications available for it.
However Coca Cola is a good example of a company, which became popular due to highly dubious business practises, like putting cocaine in their softdrink.
Reading the comments here – it was only a matter of time before someone laid into Linux even tho it was nothing to do with the article.
I wonder if MS have sent their shills around? (btw – I’m pragmatic – I use Linux, Windows, BSD, QNX and Mac. I used to use BeOS as well)
The problem is that MS has broken the law – that was known when MS’s own government took them to court in what must be the most free economy in the world where corporations are seen as god-like. This surely must say something, and apologising for them because you like their software is a bit like saying your favourite sports star can break the law at will with impunity. Just cos you like them, it doesn’t mean that everything they do is okay.
Noone is saying MS has NO right to sell Windows or to use (legal) business tactics to maintain or improve their situation, but they cannot break the law, that much applies to all of us. If you don’t like the law, campaign against it where it will do some good.
And the “mom and pop” shop analogy – all very well, the guy can charge as much as he wants, but you would be free to go to another store – that’s capitalism. For a lot of people, this is not an option in IT due to the reliance on MS software (for good or for bad) which means that consumers need to be protected by law.
I believe that price discrimination, regardless of cause (religion, sex, race, hair color, etc.) is illegal under current anti-trust laws.
I don’t know if it applies only to monopoly powers or not, though.
2) Almost anywhere Coca Cola is sold, several alternative softdrinks are available as well.
Almost anyone that sells fountain drinks and has Coca Cola only has soft drinks distributed by Coca Cola. I can’t buy Pepsi or Mountain Dew in most fast-food places, because they’re not Coca Cola products, I have to go to a fast food place owned by Pepsi (almost literally, very few places not owned by Pepsi have Pepsi fountain drinks).
Of course, the nice thing is that MS has changed their OEM licensing since the DoJ settlement, in order to begin compliance with that settlement. People would rather talk about what they did than what they’re doing, though, because it’s much more interesting most of the time.
In the Netherlands softdrinks amount of around 20% of all drinks sold. Although that may differ greatly from country to country.
> Almost anyone that sells fountain drinks and has Coca Cola only has soft drinks distributed by Coca Cola.
At least in the Netherlands drinks like 7up, SiSi, Spa, Sourcy, Schweppes, Red-Bull and Hero Cassis are also popular. Coca Cola does not have a real monopoly here in the Netherlands.
> People would rather talk about what they did than what they’re doing, though, because it’s much more interesting most of the time.
The sanctions imposed until now come in nowhere near to what they gained from their illegal activities. I see Microsoft as an example case for all abusive monopolists.
M$ is a truly globally abusive monopolist bully. (If they win, all other abusive companies would have to be left unpunished as well, as there is no other example more obvious of doing this, and globally!) Even when some things they do may not be considered illegal by todays standards, they are heavily dubious. In my opinion consumers have to be made aware of these habits. Similarly companies cutting down rainforests and heavily polluting their neighbourhood may not be illegal as well, but IMO consumers need to become aware of it so they can take a stand against the product/producer.
Mike agree with you 100%! But maybe in the US Coca Cola is more of a monopoly than in Europe. Many US citizens live on fastfoods and softdrinks.
“Similarly companies cutting down rainforests and heavily polluting their neighbourhood may not be illegal as well, but IMO consumers need to become aware of it so they can take a stand against the product/producer.”
Thats a horrible parallel, your comparing destroying the environment to making it harder to run an alternate os. In 10,000 years people will regret the cutting down of the rain forests, but no one will give a shit about what os was used on computers.
> but no one will give a shit about what os was used on computers.
What about all those jobs lost (globally)? What about holding back the entire computing industry? What about all the faults, security holes and many other screw-ups found in Microsoft’s operating systems? This should be brought to the consumers’ attention.
Microsoft amazingly under-performed as compared to the billions dollars profits created by them annually, because of their x86 legacy monopoly! Just look at what a small company like Be Inc has created or what the Amiga community has accomplished without an owner company to follow for many years. Unbelievable, truly amazing actually.
Microsoft has put profits far above its list of priorities. IMO things like innovation, business ethics, quality, security and performance are very low on their priority list.