Not that this subject matter is relevent to cypherounks, but...
cpunk relevance: operation of the free market ???
Gates' conquests can either be made out to be a failure of the free enterprise system or a success from it. the more I read whining complaints about MS's dominance, the more I prefer the latter interpretation. perhaps power corrupts, but on the other hand failure clearly promotes whining. "you cannot grow taller by chopping off the heads of others".
I respectfully disagree with the analogy. In a competitive market economy, you can indeed grow larger by killing off the competition. In fact, that's the whole idea of unfettered capitolism. This was tried 100 years ago and the result was monopolies which in the end eliminated competition and ended up reducing innovation and productivity while increasing prices. Then the US government decided to end this by introducing laws to limit monopolies. The broke up AT+T and essentially forced IBM to become weak in the name of fairness, but when Bill Gates brought Microsoft into the same position, the government failed to act (and is continuing to do so). This is (in my opinion) because Ron Raegan was so influential as president and heavily favored unfettered free trade.
I've seen so many people try to smear MS with innuendo, as if "enough people being unhappy" at a company is ample evidence that there is "unfairness". the marketplace is *not* fair. it rewards people who are in tune with it disproportionately!! sometimes, *dramatically*so* as in the case with Gates.
Inuendo or not, there are clear facts that have been widely documented regarding Microsoft (Bill Gates doesn't run it alone you know!). Among them are: - Microsoft forces dealers to buy only Microsoft software bundles if they want to use ANY microsoft products in their PCs at discount prices. I have been personally caught in this one. I had a calendar product a few years back that was marketed to about 1,000 of the largest microcomputer dealers and bundlers in the US. Not one would buy the product, and the reason they gave was that they were not allowed to bundle any non-Microsoft-approved software without losing their ability to sell the Microsoft bundles. This is not a case of sour grapes - it's just plan fact. That is what the dealers said - not just one of them. - Microsoft has historically used undocumented operating system calls which they provided details on to select software companies and which they used for their own products, but which they did not release to the greater market place. Without the use of these undocumented calls, many operating system features were not usable. The net effect was that companies not on the Microsoft chosen list were delayed in delivering new versions of products to meet new versions of operating systems, giving Microsoft and companies they worked with a market advantage. - Microsoft holds a dominant market position. This is a necessary component of the situation because if the same facts held for a non-dominant company, it would be within bounds of the law and would not stifle free trade.
a market for [x] gizmos does not even exist. a brilliant person says, " I think people really need [x] gizmos. I'm going to make and sell them. I'm going to find people who will help me, but if I can't find any I'm going to do it all myself".
Nobody is disagreeing with this. That is the desirable part of what Gates and Microsoft did - 20 years ago. But the standards we hold and the requirements we place on companies increase with their size and market dominance. This is done in the name of keeping a thriving competitive environment. In today's environment, Microsoft is dominating the market and thus reducing innovation (or so the theory goes) by using anticompetitive methods, and that is the issue. In my personal opinion, they are doing something far worse. By dominating the market with inferior products, they are essentially forcing the world to build an artificially weakenned global network environment. The net effect will be years of new versions of the Microsoft product line without a single bug fix (they call them feature enhancements).
Gates is such a person and did it with PC OS'es and various windows applications (Excel, Word Perfect, etc.). he bet his entire future on the idea that he knew what people wanted even when other companies disagreed.
This is factually inaccurate. Microsoft created inferior versions of existing products that have only come to market dominance because of anticompetitive methods. For example, Excel has numerour bugs and produces wrong answers at a rate far in excess of 123. It is truly an inferior product, and yet it now dominates the market - solely because it is bundled with other microsoft products and because interoperation between 123 and Microsoft products is delayed due to undocumented features and changes in the underlying Microsoft operating system. Microsoft did not bet its fortune, nor did Bill Gates, on Excel, WordPerfect, or any other of their applications. With a few exceptions, they took existing products, built their own versions, used inside information and their dominant market position to force the products on PC dealers, and continue to do so. ...
the truth is that the playing field has always been level, but because Gates is such a brilliant genius, market anticipator, and gizmo producer, he succeeds far beyond his or anyone else's wildest dreams.
It's just not accurate. IBM, until recently, was barred from selling more than a certain dollar value worth of units. Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft alone either. He has thousands of employees. Admitidly he was a driving force, but his team members are largely responsible for his success, and I think he would readily agree to this if you asked him.
the market has *given* bill gates his dominance. all the arguments about him being "unfair" are absolutely bogus that I have seen. they amount to, "Bill Gates is using tactics to sell more of his software than his competitors. therefore, he's not being fair to everyone else who wants to sell their software as well."
That's not what people are saying. They are saying that Microsoft is breaking the law of the land and has been for a long time and that is why they have market dominance. Whether the law has been broken or not, you are mischaracterizing what has been said about Microsoft. Enough of this - sorry for the noise, and let's get back to what cypherpunks are about - cyphers. -> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net/ Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236