At 9:38 AM -0800 12/21/97, Tim May wrote:
Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its success.
What I find most ironic about the whole Government/Microsoft thing it the role the government had in helping Microsoft achieve its current market position. Early in the days of the IBM/PC, the government, along with many major corporations, decided that the only desk top computers they bought would be PCs. There were many arguments about how they would save money by having only one kind of system to support, and how by having multiple suppliers, they would be able to buy hardware at competitive prices. Well, one for two isn't bad. The hardware is competitively priced. However, the support costs are probably higher than competing systems (e.g. Macintosh). What was left out of the analysis was the cost of the software. The OS is considerably more expensive than e.g. Linux. (And it is a hidden cost, bundled in with the hardware cost.) Then there is the cost of being held by the balls by a single company. Now the government could rectify some of the damage they helped cause by doing the same thing any other computer purchaser can do. Specify non-Microsoft products. Require special internal justification to purchase a Microsoft product. Require all systems to use open (e.g. IETF) standards. Ensure that there are several viable suppliers in all phases of the market by buying from all of them. Instead, they try to hobble Microsoft. I must admit to a guilty pleasure. It couldn't happen to two nicer organizations. The Department of Justice and Microsoft. It's almost the same guilty pleasure I felt in watching the Iran-Iraq war. They waste each other's resources reducing their danger to the rest of us. The only fly in the ointment is that I am paying for one side of this war. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | One party wants to control | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | what you do in the bedroom,| 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | the other in the boardroom.| Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA