NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/advocacy/10772

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-22 | 3.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: ftc and ms
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:53:05 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Lines: 70

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Joe Discar) writes
:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Timothy I M
iller) writes:
>>
>>     A return, yes.  Binding contracts which allow no other
>>alternatives, no.  MS has reaped quite a little reward for writing
>>DOS, and they probably deserve at least most of it.  In the past, it
>>wasn't as big of a deal, as MS didn't have contracts which hampered
>>the ability of competitors to do business, and they weren't
>>competing as heavily in the applications market.  Now, though, MS
>>has practically forced (yes *forced*) vendors to either load MS-DOS
>>on all machines, or only have access to MS-DOS at a more expensive
>>price.  This is what's unfair.
>
>Ah, but the vendors aren't forced to stick with the contract.  The agreement
>generally says "we will supply product X at a cost of D only under these
>terms."  The vendors, at any time, can say "well, we don't want to do this..."
>and simply pay more money for MS-DOS (later in your post, you allude to this).

Really?  How many of these contracts have you seen?  None would be a likely
guess.  That said however, these contracts appear, from the outside at least
to be a bit more binding than that.


(some stuff deleted)

>>MS knows that MS-DOS is what would
>>probably be loaded anyway, but instead they want to force the OS on
>>to the minority of people who would rather have another OS.
>
>They don't "force" the OS on anybody.  As far as I know, the hard disk is
>read/write--and the end user could quite easily reformat the drive and put
>another OS in DOS's place.  Vendors would be quite willing to install another
>DOS on the machine, even--what they may not do is lower the price of
>the system even though you decide not to buy DOS or Windows... but this is
>the vendor's choice, and includes the decision that the price of the
>system is fixed (i.e., the prediction is that 100 systems will be sold at
>a cost of X... therefore the system price should be X*100*margin).
>

No MS doesn't hold a gun to anyones head, and say "look into our eyes, you are
getting very sleepy.  You will bundle only what we tell you too..."  Of course
they don't do that.  But they can make it so hard for a competitor to keep up
with his competitors that he almost has to bundle the software, or lose
business instead.  MS has deeper pockets than any software company save IBM.
They can afford to use tactics like this, even though they don't get the same
return they might if they used a higher price.  This used to happen a lot back
in the earlier part of the century.  A big company like say Standard Oil,
would go to gas stations and other places where oil and gas were sold and they
would basically give them two options.  They could buy their gas only from
Standard Oil or they would find themselves unable to compete because the big
company would make things so much easier on their competitors that they simply
couldn't afford to stay competitive.  They may not be holding a gun to
someone's head, but the effect is still the same.


>
>Joe
>My opinions.
>

--
Stacy John Behrens
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The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not
legitimacy.                                  [Albert Einstein]
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