OT: On Microsoft monopolies, was MS FAQ

>>>"Jeroen Wenting" <"jwenting athornetdotdemondotnl"@bag.python.org> 10/16/05 11:49 am >>>
%
%"Peter T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote in message
%news:t3k623-c5c.ln1@news.it.uc3m.es...
%>In comp.os.linux.misc Jeroen Wenting <jwenting at hornet dot demon dot nl>
%>wrote:
%>>Without Microsoft 90% of us would never have seen a computer more
%>>powerful
%>>than a ZX-81 and 90% of the rest of us would never have used only dumb
%>>mainframe terminals.
%>
%>Uh - when microsoft produced dos 1.0, or whatever it was, I was sitting
%>at my Sun 360 workstation (with 4M of RAM, later upgraded to 8M),
%>running SunOS 3.8 or thereabouts.
%>
%And how many people who now have $500 PCs ($200 of which is the cost of the
%OS) would have been able to afford those?
%
%My point is that Microsoft made computers that were more than glorified
%gaming consoles affordable for the common man.
%They are the ones who lowered the price of shrinkwrapped software for home
%and office application from thousands or tens of thousands to hundreds of
%dollars.
%
%

Microsoft never made any computers (before Xbox that is) and never had any control over the hardware price. The prices of hardware have very little to do with the software they run, but mostly with developements in IC manufacturing techniques.

As for prices on software, they went down because the market expanded, because of cheaper hardware.

The only real technological advantage MS had over a lot of it's competitors, is that it tried to have it's OS run on as much hardware as possible. Not being tied to a single hardware vendor is what made MS big. IBM's choice not to create their own OS, and use of the shelve parts, has enabled all the clone builders (most notably Compaq) to enter the PC-compatible market easily.

I think commercial software in general is a market that tends towards creating monopolies, because of the network effect. MS played the right tactics to become the OS monopoly. It has since been using all kinds of shady, sometimes illegal tactics to maintain this monopoly, and leverage it to gain others.

The Car+engine analogy is flawed, another analogy could be if sandwiches were only sold with Heinz products, you could choose betweeen peanut butter, strawberry jam or sandwichspread, but if you wanted Calve peanut butter, you would still need to pay for a jar of Heinz peanut butter too.
Received on Mon Oct 17 20:44:40 2005