I'm bored right now so...
Meyvn said:
1. Put yourself in Microsoft's shoes. They're doing their jobs, and people are buying their product. If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it. Preventing other people from buying it by breaking up the company only harms them, and does not help you.
Yep, they are doing their jobs. They are competing and trying to make a good product and that's fine. However, people also argued that breaking up of AT&T/Ma Bell would only harm the consumer, and that has proven to be untrue. The issue was never if MS had the right to compete, it was if they had the right to compete illegally or unethically.
Meyvn said:
2. Do you honestly WANT to force Apple's market share through the roof right now by crippling its competitors? They're on the brink of the most significant change in production in their history. It's going to be hard enough to get new Macs for the next few months. Do you really want to make it even worse? Additionally, have you ever considered the possibility that the bugs and security holes in Windows might have SOMETHING to do with its market share and the sheer volume of people working both inadvertently and maliciously to discover these weaknesses?
Agreed. I like Apple as a small player.
Meyvn said:
3. We "all know" the illegal practices of Microsoft? I think I missed the memo. Mind filling me in? I was always under the impression that producing a product that everybody wants and then selling it to them was perfectly legal.
Apparently you slept right through the 90's, didn't you? The DOJs case brought to light numerous illegal, or dubious at best, business practices by MS. They used fear, intimidation and ethically / legally questionable practices to corner the market and continue to use that same strategy today, albeit at a much smaller level than before. The DOJ documented numerous cases where M$ literally forced rivals and their products out of the market by illegal practices and under the table dealings.
Meyvn said:
4. How about this: you start a multi-billion dollar business, then listen while people who haven't done it whine that you have too much money.
That's not a valid excuse. Starting a billion dollar business is one thing, using that business to bludgeon other up and coming businesses to death through legally and ethically questionable business practices is something else.
Meyvn said:
Apple and Linux already have a fair chance. The people who want to use them use them. The rest don't. This country is based upon capitalism last I heard, not socialism. A "fair chance" under capitalist standards means YOU make the product, YOU set the price, YOU market the product, and YOU get the money that comes from your sales. Tell me which part of that Apple and Linux aren't getting.
Yes, but a Capitalist market also assumes that there is a level playing field and businesses will have a chance a to bring a product to market and allow the consumer to decide. Consumer choice is the ultimate goal of the capitalist system. When a business uses illegal and ethically questionable tactics to tilt the balance of the field, the whole notion of the Capitalist system gets turned on it's head. Would you argue that Standard Oil and AT&T should have been left alone to gouge the consumer and illegally defeat the completion?
Apple and Linux now have a fighting chance because M$ is now being forced to compete on a level field again. They may have evaded the DOJ, but their are enough folks watching what they do business wise that the days of their underhanded and illegal dealing are more or less gone. For the first time in over 10 years, M$ is actually having to compete with another OS on a more or less level field. Not Apples, yet, but Linux. Their greatest strength is in the sheer number of users, but those numbers do not accurately illustrate the frustration level of the average consumer and their desire to find something different to escape the MS monopoly.
