J
Dale Malony:
> >What if a big corn farmer convinces (to put it nicely) the local grocery
> >to refuse to sell the produce of some of his neighbors. Lets say he
> >also sells all of his new crop of carrots and tomatoes (which are not
> >very tasty but look nice) at a loss, and even gives them away with each
> >bushel of corn to try to get into the growing vegetable market.
Jay Kirsch:
> To a poor woman, with children to feed, these free carrots and tomatoes
> would be a blessing.
Only until all the competition in town was driven out, of course. Then the price goes up to whatever the big farmer feels like.
Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime; like they say, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (That's why it's called `anti-trust'
law; because the prototype, Standard Oil, happened to be a trust.)
> >By the time they realized they would really prefer to taste their
> >tomatoes instead of just adding juice and color to a hamburger, the
> >farmer with the good tomatoes had gone out of business and got a job at
> >the grocery store.
...
> He should get another job. If his ideas were patented, they will be in
> the public domain after seven years. Mr. Big cannot ignore them and
> succeed for long.
Yes he can, if he's big enough. Any new competitor will be small. It's not that much of a problem to drop prices below his costs, sue him for something ridiculous or any number of other strategies, until he runs out of money and is driven out of business.
Mr Big can afford to sell at a loss (especially in a limited area) for far longer than can a new business.
Don't forget also that software has what the sociologists call ``network effects'' - the advantage of a lot of other people using the same brand. You don't get that with corn.
> >Somehow you've managed to miss the stories of Microsoft strong-arming
> >vendors to exclude competitors software from their bundles. You've
> >missed the testimony that vendors feared repercussions from Microsoft if
> >they went against Microsoft's agenda.
> That's better.
[definition of strong-arming]
> This is a rotten thing to do. If anyone from Microsoft did this I'll
> join the posse. We'll hunt 'em do down and hang 'em high.
Read through the finding-of-fact (sorry, I used to have a URL but not off-hand). They did some pretty nasty things to their competitors, and to
their partners. Obviously strong-arming itself is hard to prove in court, because that's the point, but even what was proved was pretty nasty.
> >But more overtly Microsoft created lesser versions of emerging popular
> >products and gave them away for free by adding it to Windows.
> Yes they did, starting with Notepad and Calc. I do not see what is wrong
> with this. Maybe Notepad is OK but a Web browser isn't. How is this
> decided and who decides it?
Mostly by intent, I suspect, what can be proved of it.
If MS forces IE onto Macintoshes, for instance, that can't really be interpreted as improving their own product.
> Shouldn't you hold Linux programmers, who give their software away, up to
> the same standards you apply to Microsoft?
Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.
Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
"[Microsoft] cleverly associate the word 'open' with XML. What they don't
mention is that to see the XML file definitions for Microsoft Word, you
have to sign a file license that says you will never use the code."
-- http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/IDG010503source2/
> >What if a big corn farmer convinces (to put it nicely) the local grocery
> >to refuse to sell the produce of some of his neighbors. Lets say he
> >also sells all of his new crop of carrots and tomatoes (which are not
> >very tasty but look nice) at a loss, and even gives them away with each
> >bushel of corn to try to get into the growing vegetable market.
Jay Kirsch:
> To a poor woman, with children to feed, these free carrots and tomatoes
> would be a blessing.
Only until all the competition in town was driven out, of course. Then the price goes up to whatever the big farmer feels like.
Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime; like they say, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (That's why it's called `anti-trust'
law; because the prototype, Standard Oil, happened to be a trust.)
> >By the time they realized they would really prefer to taste their
> >tomatoes instead of just adding juice and color to a hamburger, the
> >farmer with the good tomatoes had gone out of business and got a job at
> >the grocery store.
...
> He should get another job. If his ideas were patented, they will be in
> the public domain after seven years. Mr. Big cannot ignore them and
> succeed for long.
Yes he can, if he's big enough. Any new competitor will be small. It's not that much of a problem to drop prices below his costs, sue him for something ridiculous or any number of other strategies, until he runs out of money and is driven out of business.
Mr Big can afford to sell at a loss (especially in a limited area) for far longer than can a new business.
Don't forget also that software has what the sociologists call ``network effects'' - the advantage of a lot of other people using the same brand. You don't get that with corn.
> >Somehow you've managed to miss the stories of Microsoft strong-arming
> >vendors to exclude competitors software from their bundles. You've
> >missed the testimony that vendors feared repercussions from Microsoft if
> >they went against Microsoft's agenda.
> That's better.
[definition of strong-arming]
> This is a rotten thing to do. If anyone from Microsoft did this I'll
> join the posse. We'll hunt 'em do down and hang 'em high.
Read through the finding-of-fact (sorry, I used to have a URL but not off-hand). They did some pretty nasty things to their competitors, and to
their partners. Obviously strong-arming itself is hard to prove in court, because that's the point, but even what was proved was pretty nasty.
> >But more overtly Microsoft created lesser versions of emerging popular
> >products and gave them away for free by adding it to Windows.
> Yes they did, starting with Notepad and Calc. I do not see what is wrong
> with this. Maybe Notepad is OK but a Web browser isn't. How is this
> decided and who decides it?
Mostly by intent, I suspect, what can be proved of it.
If MS forces IE onto Macintoshes, for instance, that can't really be interpreted as improving their own product.
> Shouldn't you hold Linux programmers, who give their software away, up to
> the same standards you apply to Microsoft?
Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.
Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
"[Microsoft] cleverly associate the word 'open' with XML. What they don't
mention is that to see the XML file definitions for Microsoft Word, you
have to sign a file license that says you will never use the code."
-- http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/IDG010503source2/