Re: Loyal Microsoft Fan

From: E McCann (love.nodotshere.myquadra_at_mad.scientist.com)
Date: 03/25/04 

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 14:36:18 -0800

"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" <jones_jupiter@hotnomail.com> wrote in message
news:u6ZpTDrEEHA.3568@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Perhaps you live in the wrong area if no computers with Linux are
> available.
> Here is just one source:
>
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=106562&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A106562
>
> The stores will sell whatever people will buy.
> If the stores do not stock something it is because they do not think
> people will buy it.
>
> Since it is the consumers that choose, perhaps it is not all the fault
> of the "monopoloy".
> Just maybe the "monopoloy" is the fault of the consumers that choose
> what they think is best for them in their situation.

JJ,

The monopoly's not a recent event. One of the (historic) complaints. Several
years ago OEMs brought up the fact that the way MS licensed the OS to them
made it economically infeasable to offer *any* other OS. Some OEMs came up
trying to offer OS/2 and couldn't - there were complaints that MS *did*
strongarm them into only offering Windows (and IIRC MS DOS at the time.)
Others (Digital Research) complained MS went "above and beyond" to scare
people away from other OSes (fake errors in Windows- 3.0, IIRC - if
installed on DRDos 5, Windows (not for workgroups) 3.11 which had no real
active changes, just broke the OS/2 2.1 For Windows installer, etc.)

Similar complaints were heard from ISPs and others who were told they *could
not* offer Netscape instead of Internet Explorer.

This was not "consumer choice." Actions such as these are what brought about
the lawsuits in the first place.

http://web.archive.org/web/19961220124227/caldera.com/news/ (1996, not on
the current site... since it's partially SCO now. Of course, that makes the
OpenLinux bit offered there interesting....)

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/474.php

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/jan-june98/microsoft_1-13.html ->
interview about one of the cases.

http://www.aufait.net/~garnet/muse/lla.html -> reasonably interesting...
mentioning how even free company-made OSes (such as BeOS) weren't allowed
and forced away, and why Linux is still around (no one company to go against
because of development model.)

Just a few things to look at. The history of antitrust and complaints of
anticompetitive behavior from MS go *well* back - you could say they went
from a clever way to compete with the IBM deal to being anticompetitive
themselves. This was, frankly, allowed because of how *slow* the justice
system is, and the relative lack of knowledge of "how things work" in the
computer / software industry by the legal system. So, for the most part -
consumers weren't *allowed* to choose.

FWIW, this is where I'm coming from - I started running DOS 5 and Windows.
Jumped to OS/2 when I could, while watching what was going on on the Windows
side (Win95, which seriously annoyed me just with upgrading a modem. Long
story there.) Got annoyed with IBM's attitude after OS/2 Warp 4 (great OS,
lousy attitude toward non-corporate users.) Looked into Linux which was
mostly command-line (still have my old Slackware CD somewhere,) had lousy
hardware support at the time, etc. so ended up "by default" on Windows with
a new PC.

XP is the only Windows OS I've made a conscious decision to *choose* for a
PC. Over a decade, remember? XP is, IMHO, where Windows should have been
several years ago. (Yes, I think MS should have switched completely over to
NT - based OSes around the time of NT 4.) Had they done so, I'd probably
have ignored Linux, OS/2 v4, BeOS and others (outside of curiosity.)

Currently running both Windows and a Mac (OS X.2.8) 

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