[Gllug] Re: Gates to get Knighthood!!!

[Matthew Cooke]

Jack Bertram wrote:

>>Whether they'd have been quite as into iffy business practices as he is
>>is open to debate, but the fact remains we would still have had commodity
>>PCs and users would probably have had a lot less pain if we'd had a
>>technology company (instead of a marketing company) making the most money.
>>    
>>
>
>There's no way that could have happened.  You misunderstand what
>marketing is.  For example, Apple is a marketing company, and always has
>been, yet I don't see the yowls of distress when it is successful.
>  
>
The problem is that Microsoft has a monopoly position in desktop 
computing which it holds due to what many people consider to be 
unethical businesses practices. Monopolies make money by suppressing 
competition rather than by being innovative or producing the best 
quality products or services.

Prices of PC hardware would still fall if there was healthy competition 
amongst several (compatible) desktop OS vendors in fact overall prices 
would likely fall faster as there would be price competition on the OS 
too. IBMs hardware was cloned, this prevented a hardware monopoly 
because compatible hardware was made quickly enough that IBM could no 
longer maintain a monopoly hardware position, this is what caused 
hardware prices to fall.

There are many business people who would want to recognise Bills 
achievements: Buying up QDOS, ripping off the macOS GUI and fooling IBM 
into supporting Windows as well as the superior OS2/Warp followed by 
making windows incompatible with Dr Dos to beat Novell and then 
leveraging their monopoly position in the OS to kill off many other 
software competitors all the time whilst fending off the law suits by 
delaying them so long the competitor goes bust or the technology is 
obsolete. Then out maneuvered the US Justice Department and the EUs 
legal challenges designed to stop the monopoly abuse.

However, a lot of people probably think that we should recognise and 
reward, technical innovation, marketing and non-abusive business 
practices rather than monopoly-abuse.
Sure there ARE other abusive monopolies in the world, just so happens 
that microsoft is the worst case in the world of computers.

Matt.
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