Adam:
I tend to agree with the view that monopolies exist due to government subsidies (eg. free government enforcement services for copyright, corporate welfare, government contracts.)
I am trying to sit out this latest "Microsoft" thread as much as I can bear to. (It seems that several lists I'm are consumeed by the dual memes of "What to do about Microsoft?" and "What to do about spam?" Same arguments, recycled endlessly.) Obviously, ship the spam to Microsoft and be done with it :-) The Spam Wars does seem to be muscling out "Libertarians vs. Statists" as the canonical all-consuming political discussion on the net,
Monopolies may depend on government for long-term stability, but fads can stick around for quite a while before dying out. Remember Disco? :-) Attila also talked about Intel making badly-designed microprocessors. It was somewhat of a vicious circle, since the big market for 80*86s required bug-for-bug compatibility with Microsloth's "640K is enough" real-mode DOS, partly because of the large investment companies had in applications like word processors that ran in that environment. Getting out of the problem requires replacing a whole bunch of things at the same time, and incremental upgrades can't get you there. (For a horrendous example, there's the Air Traffic Control system, brought to you by the same government that wants to help us fix our Microsoft addictions; got any spare 360/90 clones?) Tim: though there's a fair bit of overlap.
My view is a simple one: those who don't like Microsoft products should use something else. It works for me.
Sigh. In the business world, we tend to be stuck with Microsoft products, chosen by the same clueless bureaucrats who choose 10-pound laptops :-) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639