Time For Anti-Trust 2.0? 435
An anonymous reader writes, "PC manufacturer Acer is complaining that Microsoft has jacked up the price of Vista, and that the basic versions are so basic no one will ship them. Since the collapse of the Microsoft anti-trust case under the Bush administration in 2001, manufacturers have no choice but to accede, adding hundreds of dollars to the cost of each PC. With Gates now proclaiming victory over European regulators, Microsoft once again seems unstoppable. But Microsoft had drawn itself
close to the Republican Party.
With the Republicans now evicted from the House and Senate, is it time to
look at the Microsoft anti-trust suit?
Could Microsoft be compelled to lower its inflating Vista prices,
or to open their tech or even supply funding
to Linux-flavored Windows such as Wine? What do Slashdot readers think about the likelihood of another go at breaking up the Windows monopoly?"
Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
I welcome high prices on w32. There are alternatives, said manufactures could just install one of those.
Now, if the prices dependent on not selling anything by w32, I can see the point, and that should be fined so heavily that they never, ever dream of doing it again.
Fool's errand (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus, I say let them jack up prices. Let manufacturers hurt. It may convince them to introduce Ubuntu pre-loaded machines. Why not? It doesn't require a complete changeover, just a quiet new line of products. Snowball effect, at some point. Surely they see the trend of the snowball coming their way, anyhow.
Or price the same machines without an OS. It's simple enough that car ads and other products do that. Most ads offer the 2007 model Toyota whatever, starting at $9,999. Well, we all know that's base model. But that magic 9 price grabs our eyeballs and does it's job all the same.
Re:Basic version? Yes, please! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fight the power? (Score:1, Interesting)
Anyways, the change of power really doesn't mean much since the Executive Branch is in charge of prosecutions. If Bush hasn't cared about MS thumbing its nose at everyone for the past 6 years, he isn't going to start caring now when he is trying to tame the Democrats. He's not about to attack one of their biggest lobbyists unless he absolutely has to.
Re:manufacturers have no choice but to accede (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the Dems not having enough money to go after Microsoft or not having the authority I beg to differ. For one the Democrats control Congress now, so if they do go after Microsoft it will be paid for by tax payer money, and second they have the authority to investigate Microsoft in Congresional commity which would be a bad thing for Bill Gates and company. So, no they don't need George W. Bush's cooperation to go after Microsoft but I'm certain they could persuade him to assist them since they control government spending (ie; the power of the purse) and they have oversight authority over different branches of government. If a certain agency isn't doing its job like the FTC for instance they can go after them which would be very bad for Microsoft. The FTC investigates violations of and enforces Anti-Trust Laws and they answer to the US Senate.
Re:Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot (Score:2, Interesting)
In my eyes, this functional equivalence would need to include the ability to use Visio stencils, or a replacement for all the existing stencils already in use. This isn't likely to happen anytime soon, I'm afraid.
Re:It is obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Except that Microsoft is relying on our government to enforce its patents and copyrights, all of which is supposed to be for the public good. If Microsoft is going to break the rules and show disdain for the public good, and they really want the government to stay out of it, then how about they stay all the way out of it and stop enforcing Microsoft's IP?
I know we sometimes get into a mode of thinking where "capitalism" is used to justify an attitude of corporate entitlement. Still, I think it's worth noting all of the benefits we, the people, through our government, have afforded companies like Microsoft beyond what raw capitalism dictates. Since Microsoft has used these benefits to our detriment, making it impossible in some cases to stop using Microsoft software, it's easy to argue that we, the people, ought to act through our government again to rectify the situation.
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally...I use Linux. And I like it. But between the lack of plugins for web browsing, the incredibly difficulty of installing things, and the lack of any real good compatibility for windoze apps, it's nowhere near good enough for most people.
Maybe if ReactOS or Syllable started gaining some momentum....
Hm... I was a liberal before I read this thread... (Score:2, Interesting)
But this thread is dangerous:
"if major pc manufacturers start shipping pcs without windows, they lose their discount pricing on windows & other ms software"
"In addition, there should be no "incentives" of any kind"
C'mon guys, we believe in a free market here. What's needed is for a manufacturer or two to grow a pair, offer preinstalled Linux, and put some effort behind it. Some marketing that makes the case for Linux. How much is the discount? $50? How many people would notice the difference between a $1400 computer and a $1450 one?
Abusing monopoly power in order to crush new markets is wrong; offering incentives to partners in order to maintain market share is 100% legal and moral.
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hm... I was a liberal before I read this thread (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, sadly I can't provide a citation for this (although hey, this is Slashdot-- citations are for wimps, right?), but I was under the impression that the deal worked something like this:
In the post-Dell world of low-margin commodity PC's, the difference is likely to be at least $100, possibly more. Hell, there are even things like 'co-marketing' grants from the likes of MS and Intel, where the OEM gets money in return for putting MS or Intel prominently in their advertising, and I'm sure that the MS one offsets most of the remaining cost of the Windows licenses. However, when you're competing for a slice of the $500 PC market, you don't want your $25 copy of Windows to start costing $150 now. Or, in the case of Vista, $200 or more (because no-one wants the basic versions, as Acer suggests). Now, if you don't get favourable pricing, your offering either costs $700 compared to the competition's $500, or else you're going to lose money on every unit sold.
It's not the potential markup on a $1400 PC that hurts -- it's the markup on a $400 or $500 PC that hurts, because the retail price of Windows will increase that by a fairly noticeable percentage.
-Q
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
We can start fixing that by paring back on the runaway government entitlement program called "copyright". Few people seem to remember that just a few decades ago binary object files were not generally considered to be copyrightable at all. If push back against ever-expanding government meddling and move back to that interpretation, then the whole problem with Microsoft interfering with the free market would go away.
Re:Submission is a troll (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
I have flash disabled (actually, I never installed it since I find the EULA too nasty), and if a site requires it, I just move on to the next site. Only a tiny fraction (1 or 2%) of the sites I try to visit require it, though many more need it for their ads to work (which is the reason I would disable it even if it were installed).
As far as installation goes, what good are programs for MS OSs if virtually all have a EULA that I'm not willing to sign? And most of the stuff without such EULAs is ported from Linux and would run better on a POSIX compliant system anyway. I've installed mplayer for a few people on their XP systems (mostly because it's very robust, doesn't rely on the
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, MS's approach is one example of a standard anti-free-market practice that monopolies, duopolies, cartels and such have used for centuries.
It's not a secret that hardly any of the distributors pay "list price" for Windows. The usual sort of anti-competitive contract is used: You get a "special" lower price if you don't sell any competing products. The list price is made high enough that all the distributors take the contract. This effectively locks out startups from the distribution channels.
A textbook example in the US is the way that so many stores and gas stations have either Coke or Pepsi vending machines, but not both. A retail outlet that tries to provide both can be hit with a higher wholesale price for both.
Some US states have outlawed this sort of contract, and in those states, you can get more choice and competition. But there are limits to how effective any but the largest states can be. With companies the size of Microsoft and Dell, such a state law is rather meaningless.
Anyway, MS's management doesn't expect to get list price for Windows from hardly anyone but retail customers trying to upgrade. The main point of such prices is to maintain the lock on retail distribution channels via "special" discounts to distributors.
With computers, a "free market" has never existed, and probably never will. We've always had one 800-pound-gorilla with the ability to lock out most of the competition, except for specialized niche markets that don't much interest the big guy. In such a situation, competition can never develop, at least not without government "interference" via pro-market laws.
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have bought that argument 20 years ago, but no longer.
"Free Enterprise" is no longer about freedom to do business.
It is NOW about NAFTA shipping jobs out of the country to the benefit of a few owners.
It is about hiring illegals to avoid taxes - again so owners can profit AND avoid paying taxes.
It is about making copyright terms last centuries, thus depriving society of any real benefit of an invention.
It is about academic researchers doing research with gov money and then personally patenting discoveries tax payers paid for in order to charge exhorbant "license" fees.
It is about health insurance companies "coordinating" benefits so that the gov pays first and they pick up the difference, but still collect the FULL premium.
It is about EULA's, DRMs, and other unholy contracts that remove freedoms which the Constitution says are "inalienable".
It is about seven mansions and other perks that greedy people aspire to, no matter how many thousands of employees lose their saving, pensions, retirements, savings and homes.
It is about having offices in one state but doing retail sales out of Nevada, to avoid their fair share of taxes, all the while lecturing Oregonians about not paying their fair share of taxes.
It is about calling your customers thieves, and treating them as such and sending out BSA thugs, with police to protect THEM, to raid your businesses for not paying for "protection".
I could go on, because the list is becomming endless. The basic problem is that an artifical legal device, the "corpus" now has MORE rights and protections that a REAL, LIVING person.
Monopoly? What monopoly? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no monopoly. There is only a large marketshare. For the past ten years, during the very period of time everyone was telling me I had no choice, I have been using non-Microsoft systems. Currently I am using FreeBSD on my desktop and Mac OSX on my laptop. The only Windows I have is on my work-supplied laptop, and that's on a *secondary* partition. I can tell Bill Gates to "bite me" with no fear of repercussion.
Sun is still going strong (and still stuck in their perpetual layoff/hire cycle). Solaris is still the workstation of choice, whose chief competition comes from Santa Clara instead of Redmond.
Apple, the perpetually dying platform, is doing gangbusters. Sure, Microsoft gave them some money. But the very first thing they did with it was to come out with Safari and dump Internet Explorer. The OSX desktop is just starting to explode on the scene. I work with a lot of software companies, and most of them are moving into the Mac market for the very first time.
During the very height of the Microsoft monopoly, Linux went from an obscure kernel project to a major player in the server and embedded markets with lots of inroads to the desktop. And it's not just because Open Source is the equivalent of "price dumping", because the service side of things isn't inexpensive.
OpenOffice and Firefox have shown that high quality productivity tools don't need to come from Redmond.
So where's the monopoly? What is stopping me, or anyone else, from not using Microsoft products? It may be still be hard to find pre-bundled Linux systems, but pre-bundled Mac OSX systems are just one aisle over. That's just on the desktop side. On the server side only the true-blue Microsoft fan still uses Windows on the server.
In short, there is no monopoly.
Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks (Score:2, Interesting)