on 5/16/00 3:25 PM, Mumpsimus at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> No, I POINT to the reality that Gates has/had no monopoly.
> There were NO barriers to entry.  There were numerous
> competitors.
Hey, I go on a hiatus, and come back, and there's this gadfly on the list,
bothering everybody! Welcome. This list can use you.

That said, your point about Gates is actually half true--the part written in
the past tense. The OS field was wide open when Gates came along. That's
true. What Gates realized, ahead of everyone else, was the he who controls
the OS has a stranglehold on everything else. And he went for it.

But to say that Gates doesn't have an OS monopoly now is a little specious,
don't you think? For one thing, there's been a legal determination to that
effect. For another, there ARE barriers to entry now. Whether they are
insurmountable is another question. Linux will be a test. But surely you are
familiar with what I think are called "network effects," the tendency of a
dominant product's value to become self-enhancing by sheer dint of its
ubiquitousness? Anyone who thinks it's an easy matter to convince someone to
adopt an alternative OS has never tried to get friends and family to use
Macs, like I have.

So, yes, Gates *had* no monopoly, when there *were* no barriers to entry.
But that was then, this is now. He does have a monopoly now. I think that's
pretty clear. What isn't clear, and what laypeople seem to obfuscate, is
whether that monopoly is illegal. That's where the action is. (#1 axiom of
antitrust law: a monopoly legally arrived at through success in the
marketplace, is not a violation of antitrust law.) The mere fact that it has
an OS monopoly is not per se illegal.

Frankly I'm a little confused when "experts" worry about splitting MSFT in
two, on the grounds that the Office half would then proceed to crush its
rivals in non-Windows areas that it currently doesn't compete in. Without
further evidence, this seems to me like a perfectly legal strategy, indeed,
competition at its purest. That makes me wonder further to what extent the
antitrust action is about protecting consumers (another axiom) and to what
extent it's about protecting Microsoft's competitors (which is not what
antitrust is supposed to be about).
--
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA
"The Clinton-haters and their friends in the media are like a cargo cult:
they keep expecting something to fall from the sky, and years of
disappointment never seem to awaken any doubt." - Joe Conason