Re: Boycott Microsoft

["G. J. Greetan" <address@below.com>]

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Hello:

>- The competition between AMD, Intel, Cyrix, Fairchild, NSC, Motorola,
>IBM, MIPS, Digital, Samsung, and others has resulted in increases in CPU
>power.


    I disagree with this.  There has been an increase in CPU speed *not*
because company A wants to beat out company B.  There has been an increase
in speed because there has been a demand for faster processors.  As software
gets bigger and more complex, faster processors are needed.

>- Competition between memory vendors such as Siemens, Toshiba, amongst
>others, has resulted in the low RAM prices that we see today.  Higher
>capacity RAM chips are available cheaper now than they ever were before.


    Wrong again.  The reason for the very cheap RAM was because there was a
*huge* oversupply for quite a long time.  In fact, Micron and others cut
back production recently (or stopped new RAM production) in order to shrink
the supply, thereby raising the price.  The price of RAM is expected to
start leveling out.

>- Other components have seen similar effects, as bigger or faster or
>otherwise superior components such as monitors, disk drives, modems,
>network controllers have improved commonly whilst simultaneously getting
>cheaper.


    I have to reject this argument.  These things wouldn't have developed if
there wasn't a need for it in the market place.

>Note, in contrast, that Microsoft's products and actions are visibly in
>stark contrast to this.  They have been consistently and quite visibly
>driving competition out of the marketplace, with the following visible
>results:
>
>- Windows NT 4.0 is not cheaper than 3.51, or 3.5, or ...
>
>- Public pricing of Windows 95, the last time I saw it on the shelf, was
>$195.  That's *more* expensive than MS-DOS was five years ago.  (To use
>other prices than $195 would be to compare apples to oranges...)


    Every product Microsoft has will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years.
Absolutely *every* product will be useless.
Therefore they have to continue to research and innovate in order to remain
a leader.  As for the price of the operating system...you do realize that
Win95 just didn't appear out of thin air, correct?  MS had to invest
*millions* of dollars into research and development in order to come up with
a product called "Win95."  Not to mention the fact that they have to invest
millions just to maintain the product.

>- Microsoft's "office" products have not been getting cheaper.  One
>would expect that if there had been comparable effects to what has
>happened in the hardware realm that MS-Office would be priced at about
>$5 by now.


    MS Office may not be getting cheaper, but more and more features have
been added.  You are getting more for your money than you did with the
previous release.  And there is *plenty* of competition in the office suite
market.  Corel & Lotus are by no means "non-competition."  It might be
helpful to point out that prior to MS releasing any office suite, Corel held
90+% of the market for office suites.  MS didn't drive them out with unfair
business practices...MS just had a better product.  This same situation
exists with operating systems, or any other area you wish to point out.

>To the contrary, as the amount of competition in this area declines as
>Microsoft "encourages" would-be competitors to leave the marketplace,
>prices have *not* fallen, and they have been substantially *increasing*
>prices by virtue of licensing changes that forbid cross-installation of
>the "work copy" on a "home PC."


    What you are asking MS, in essense, is to add more features, but then
drop the price of the product.  That is poor business sense.  Why should
they spend money researching these new features, and then drop the price of
the product and not get their investment back?

>It is quite typical for people to bring up "protecting capitalism" when
>they want to disagree, but haven't any real arguments against the
>anticompetitive actions in the marketplace.
>
>Capitalism only works when it goes hand in hand with an open,
>competitive market environment.  In situations where competition is not
>present, it is merely a different way of implementing tyranny.


    Tyranny?  If not MS...then it will be someone else?  Where were you when
IBM had a lock on the PC market back in the 70's?  Apple was the only game
in town for a while too...    There *is* competition?  Have you ever heard
of Linux, OS/2, Rhapsody...etc.  Those are all competiting operating
systems.  They haven't been successful because they haven't even begun to
approach Windows in terms of ease of use...etc.  I reject the notion that a
monopoly can even exist.  If a monopoly exists, it because of government
intervention.  Monopolies cannot exist in a free market.  There are always
going to be companies targeting MS, and if MS decide to quit innovating,
experimenting...etc...then MS influence will begin to fade.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*
G. J. Greetan (ICQ - 11516548)

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