NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/advocacy/10828

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 3.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is Microsoft the next Standard Oil?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Dec 92 03:40:05 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Lines: 65

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (RICHA
RD HOFFBECK) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (W. Dona
ld Rolph) writes:
>>
>> You have an interesting definition of a monopoly which,  I thnik, doesn't qui
te
>> square with the legal definition of a monopoly.  For all practical  economic
>> purposes a single company with thast much market  share is a monopoly as far
as
>> fixning market price and practices  go.
>
>Whether 80% is sufficient to exercise monopoly power depends on the nature
>of the product and the nature of the market.  The company that produces the
>VCR+ boxes has a 100% monopoly yet noone is too concerned because the market
>is viewed in terms of overall consumer electronic options. Anyone who
>thinks that the market for compilers, spreadsheets, wp, graphics, etc. isn't
>competitive hasn't been checking their mailbox lately.

Absolutely true.  But a current monopoly isn't what we're worried about.  A
*potential* monopoly is what we are worried about.

>
>If you want to declare MS a monopolist because they have a large market share
>of the PC OS market, then what about DEC/VMS, SUN/SunOS/Solarus, APPLE/Finder
>and NeXT/NextStep. They all have large market shares for their respective
>machines with the latter 3 approaching 100%.  The deal that DEC cuts me on VMS
>would make it real hard to consider a 3rd party OS unless I wanted
>unix really really bad.

You neglected to mention that the same company produces both ends of the
product.  In all of those cases there are alternatives, but none of them has
anything even remotely approaching the market share of the PC industry, nor
will they ever do so *because* of their proprietary nature.  You can't run the
software without buying the hardware.  It is different on the PC platform
though.  I can buy one of several different operating systems for a machine
from any number of vendors and thus I have a lot more flexibility.  If MS were
to somehow force the other OS vendors out of the market place, that would not
be a very attractive future.  I do not wish to have only one vendor for
software when I have so many choices for my hardware.  I want flexibility and
a potential MS monopoly doesn't provide that.

>
>Until recently Apple GAVE AWAY their OS -- how hard is it to compete against
>that! That's right ... Apple also produces applications software and there have
>been grumblings from other developers that Apple isn't always up front with
>them.  Does anyone have the number for the FTC enforcement group? :-))
>
How much of the software or hardware industry does Apple control?  Not much.
They wrote their own system for their own hardware and decided to protect it.
Short term it made the richer, but long term they suffered for it.  Apple is
nothing even resembling a monopoly.

>--rick
>


--
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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