On Friday 14 December 2001 04:57, Frank Shute wrote:
It was established in the findings of fact that there is no pressure on them whatsoever to cut their prices. Their margins are obscene & it was a crucial piece of evidence in establishing that they were a monopoly in the first place.
People often have to run Windows whether they like it or not - even I have to run it - and believe me I don't like it. Price is not an issue.
I disagree. If they charged £1000 a machine for Windows you would see a mass rush to Linux. Its a matter of degree. With proper competition I should think Windows would be less than a tenner without proper competition its £100. If MS did reduce this to say £20 it would make it a lot harder to establish Linux. If they have lower sales volumes (as is happening) and they keep putting the price up, the economic argument for Linux will eventually get the upper hand.
The only way to stop this continuing is to regulate & regulate hard.
If the regulators did set a price of say £10 a licence for windows and £10 for Office you could probably say good bye to any real chance of a shift to Linux at the desktop. Its why I think on balance it could well be better to give MS enough rope to hang itself. Greed is a difficult emotion for the greedy to resist and if sales volume is reduced by fewer PCs going out there the temptation is to keep putting the price up to maintain the revenue the shareholders have come to expect.
I don't have a BT line at all. Its all NTL, mainly because its cheaper and faster. BT are not doing wonderfully well.
I don't get NTL out in the sticks here. BT & the rest of the telecoms companies aren't doing terribly well because they got screwed over by their respective governments for their 3G licences - which was not good for anybody as they've now got stuff all money to invest in infrastructure & they'll never get more than a fraction back of what they paid for the licences.
So the money has gone into the public purse. Good scam on behalf of the tax payer :-) All depends on your point of view. Personally, I think taxing IT infrastructure is detrimental and will delay things a few years. Delays might actually help Linux as it gives it longer to strengthen and mature before things like .net have tme to establish another monopoly.
Every dog has its day and MS haven't been going long in the scheme of things. The Roman Empire collapsed, so did the Soviet Union and MS dominance will last rether less lime than either but the dissidents need to collectively put their energy in in as effective ways as possible to shorten the timescale as much as possible. If they abuse their position the long term outcome will be inevitable, just a matter of when.
Agreed. Thankfully there's no historical precedent for 1000yr Reichs ;-)
The American political system is undoubtedly as corrupt as anything on this planet and FWIW their legal sytem sucks too in that the more money you've got, the better chance you have of winning your case.
I can think of worse.
Name & shame them! I can't think of any political system where corruption and bribery of the political class is institutionalised in the shape of the PACs (political action commitees).
I should think the Taliban, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Stalin and a few other ran more corrupt governments by a long way.
Everywhere else it seems to be done on an `ad hoc' basis.
I don't think ethnic cleansing of Jews was particularly ad hoc.
Being essentially a client state they'll try and go for it in this country but I think the Europeans might have their doubts about it - I guess we'll just have to wait & see.
Just keep lobbying. It can make a difference.
Will do :)
-- IanL Open Source - save money - employ more teachers Use Star Office the free replacement for Microsoft Office