After years of scrutiny by anti-competition police, Ballmer still doesn’t get it:
“When Mossberg asked why Microsoft had drastically lowered its price of Windows XP in reaction to netbook vendors having initially shipped units with Linux, Ballmer retreated by asking, “Why should I give someone else an opportunity?”.”
It’s the law, Steve. Monopolies are required to give competitors opportunities.
This exchange also answers the question why GNU/Linux has not taken a larger share of the desktop OS market. If M$ thinks, in the 21st century, that a monopoly is permitted to kill competition, then what dirty tricks have they pulled with the OEMs and retailers to prevent the entry of GNU/Linux into the food-chain? Exclusive dealing? Kickbacks? Bribes? What? Tell us, Steve!
17481
12767
206
3
2
23928 
11870 
11722 
4636 
4268 
1641 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
“It’s the law, Steve. Monopolies are required to give competitors opportunities.”
Not at all, Robert. Further, they are allowed to sell below their actual costs if it is necessary to meet competition pricing. You don’t seem to know much about the law.
Also, you have to identify a party that is being adversely affected by a claimed anticompetitive practice and, sorry for your side of the fence, there is no commercial entity that seems to be in any way affected by Windows dominating the PC market. You have to have a company, Robert, and you don’t have one.
Until someone is charging money for Linux, there is no expectation of license revenue to claim the loss of due to the licensing costs of Windows as set by Microsoft.
You lose.
What do investor’s think of selling below cost? What about anti-dumping laws? People do sell GNU/Llinux and services for it. The GPL allows for that.
This is not about me, A-C. I don’t need a business for what I do.
“I don’t need a business for what I do.”
What you are doing is making a lot of untrue statements about the conduct of business, Robert, and you are misleading your flock.
Your contempt for people’s ability to think is amazing.
amicus_curious, care to provide some examples? So far it’s been all accusation and no proof from you.
GNU/Linux has not taken a bigger share because it’s a lousy operating system. In fact, it’s not even that. It’s a messy family of similar but incompatible operating systems that no one sane wants to get near to, let alone distribute.
Of course GNU/Linux is a lousy operating system but it’s the best we have. To be better, it would have to read our minds, sing and dance. Wait… It does those things already and it manages to do all that while managing all the resources of the computer rather well. The third teacher here taking a GNU/Linux box on his desk said it was so fast it seems to present stuff before he clicks. He was probably referring to Google-chrome, which does read our minds, history, e-mail etc.
Many millions of people are using, distributing and loving GNU/Linux, so you need to define your objections more clearly. I am currently using Debian GNU/Linux “testing” which has not even been released yet and it works better than the OS people were using here last year. M$, for instance, cannot even get the bugs out of XP after ten years of spending billions of consumer dollars on the project. MacOS has a decent core with a BSD UNIX underneath but Apple has neglected security to a large extent and restricts freedom so I would like to know what you think is a better OS than GNU/Linux which I can use on as many machines as I like, examine the code, change the code and distribute code as is or changed. How could an OS get any better than that?
Oh. The share. I think GNU/Linux’s share is pretty good considering OEMs do not produce many machines with it and retailers don’t sell it and there is not a lot of advertising. It must be taking share based on its merits and word-of-mouth.
To be better, it would be enough to clone Windows 95. XP, let alone Windows 7, are too far out of reach for the poor user experience that Linux offers. Do you really think you Linux fans can trick OEMs into preinstalling Linux just with propaganda and endless Linux praise? They’re not that stupid.
Linux has the share it deserves, at least we agree on something.
I disagree strongly. GNU/Linux should have a large share based on price/performance. It’s usually free of cost for the licence for instance. That gives a large ratio when software maintenance is not factored in. When software maintenance is considered, GNU/Linux gains more because it is just as easy to maintain the software on thousands of PCs as one because of the package management systems. That other OS has nothing like that. Most apps on that other OS come from suppliers other than M$ and must be maintained separately. Many do auto-updates which run as services, sucking juice from the machines at every boot. Other features that Lose ’9x could not compete against GNU/Linux was uptime. I remember cringing before every file operation because opening or closing any process was likely to crash the machine. The last time I ran a lab with Lose ’98 one student would lose work every class. It was a pain in the butt. That other OS has improved in uptime since then but there is still downtime for updates and re-re-reboots, malware scanning, defragmentation, and, of course malware.
ASUS did a wonderful business when it brought in GNU/Linux on the eeePC. They doubled and redoubled production trying to keep up. The current slump in netbook sales is because the OEMs are not giving people what they want. Hence, the emergence of naked netbooks.
“amicus_curious, care to provide some examples? So far it’s been all accusation and no proof from you.”
Well, Danno, Robert is grossly misinformed regarding several issues that he spouts with some regularity. He is insistent that Microsoft is violating antitrust laws, for example his uninformed statement that started my comments to this thread, i.e.
“It’s the law, Steve. Monopolies are required to give competitors opportunities.”
That is not true and Robert cannot begin to substatntiate the idea. But instead of admitting to such ignorance and apologizing, he tries to divert attention by asking if investors would tolerate selling below cost as if that was a real answer. He is embarassed by his ignorance, but continues to flout it. If you want to continue to follow his lead, go ahead, it is no bother to me.
But think about how so many OEMs, according to Robert, shun their best opportunities for success and kowtow to Microsoft due to some sore of inexplicable mind control. The world’s press has asserted that the netbooks with Linux failed due to market non-acceptance, but he would rather believe that there was some malevolence involved.
amicus_curious wrote:
I did. I quoted the source, too. What have you done lately? Here is another example from Wikipedia.
If M$ has done nothing illegal, why has it paid fines and agreed to stop doing illegal things all over the world?
Further, here’s a snippet from the Court of Appeal:
“I did. I quoted the source, too”
You cited nothing at all even close to your screwy notion that “monopolies are required to give competitors opportunities”. You pulled that out of the air as just another of your delusions.
You cite the terms of the antitrust laws, but show no words that support your point. Moreover, you ignore the section of your own cite that plainly supports my position, i.e. “Microsoft’s only explanation for its exclusive dealing [contracts with Internet Access
Providers (IAPs)] is that it wants to keep developers focused upon its APIs — which is to say, it wants to preserve its power in the operating system market.’’ Id. We went on to state, however, that this ‘‘is not an unlawful end…”
So it is indeed lawful for a monopoly to work to exclude its competitors and certainly not a requirement to allow opportunities for competiton.
The end was not unlawful. The means were unlawful. They violated the Sherman Act.
The point of the Sherman Act is that all businesses should be able to compete. If they are exluded from the market artificially, everyone is harmed. A business cannot compete if every seller in the market signs onto the monopolist’s exclusive dealing. In a free market, anyone can compete by selling a better product at a lower price. In the world M$ created, no one can sell without attaching M$’s product. That is not an illegal end but the way they did it was, by making exclusive deals. If they had the best product in the world and no one would buy anything else at any price, they would have achieved their situation legally but that is not what happened. From about the time of Lose ’95, GNU/Linux was every bit as good as that other OS. From around 2000, GNU/Linux has been superior at any price. At $0 it should have a decent share, not 1%. Every consumer who bought M$’s stuff thinking it was free or that there was no other choice was harmed. Every business that could have been selling stuff with GNU/Linux was harmed. What M$ did was illegal.
“The end was not unlawful. The means were unlawful. They violated the Sherman Act”
Not in terms of exclusive dealing though. You are a poor student of the facts. Judge Jackson ruled that the exclusive dealing claim of the DOJ and states attornies was not valid and that Netscape had not been blocked from markets for its browser. The case law for this has established a level of 40% of available distribution as the trigger for any corrective action to be taken against a company with monopoly marketing power. Such was not the case with Netscape and Microsoft.
“If they had the best product in the world and no one would buy anything else at any price, they would have achieved their situation legally… ”
But that is exactly what the situation is today with client OS, Robert. Where have you been? The only reason that Microsoft can dictate any sort of term to OEMs is because the customers of the OEM insist on Windows on their computer. They will not buy anything else at any price. The OEMs are stuck since, without Windows, they have few, if any, customers.
The rest opf your blather is just your opinion and it is not very widely held. Most people expect and want Windows on their computers. Look at the history of the netbook. It originally was introduced with Linux and sold due to a low price, but the sales rose by an order of magnitude once it was available with Windows rather than Linux. Facts are facts and you cannot deny them.
amicus_curious wrote:
When was the last time you saw any customer go into a big box store and demand that other OS? They do not. The big box offers only that OS based on the higher price they can charge for it. Until GNU/Linux takes enough share away that will continue to happen. It has nothing to do with choice but lack of choice. If there were a big box store that only sold GNU/Linux, sales of GNU/Linux would rise dramatically because customers would wander in and pick it up. That is exactly what happened with the netbooks until M$ and partners shut down the supply of GNU/Linux netbooks.
Here is what Judge Jackson wrote:
“The big box offers only that OS based on the higher price they can charge for it.”
Big box stores do not make anything, they simply sell what others make. They could buy computers from companies that install Linux and on occasion they have done so. WalMart once offered Linux computers from Microtel, but they didn’t sell very well so the line was abandoned.
It is the belief of the OEMs involved that a Linux computer is not a desirable product to sell. You have no credentials to deny that.
“That is exactly what happened with the netbooks until M$ and partners shut down the supply of GNU/Linux netbooks.”
Microsoft merely bowed to OEM requests for an extension of XP to allow them to offer it until Win7 was ready. The supply of Linux netbooks was shut down due to the OEMs no longer making any. You see a conspiracy, but everyone else sees a lack of demand.
“The fact that Netscape was not allowed access to the most direct, efficient ways to cause the greatest number of consumers to use Navigator is legally irrelevant to a final determination of plaintiffs’ § 1 claims.” ”
Which is what I said, i.e. the claim that Microsoft violated the antitrust laws regarding exclusive dealing was disallowed by Jackson. You said that monopolies were not allowed to do that and you were dead wrong. When the DOJ used the same evidence in making an illegal leveraging claim, the “&2″ referenced in Jackson’s finding, the DCCCOA reversed his decision there as well, ruling that Microsoft had not used their monopoly in Windows to obtain a monopoly with IE. But the leveraging charge has nothing to do with your claim, so it is irrelevant to mention it.
amicus_curious wrote:”
ASUS redoubled production of GNU/Linux netbooks monthly for months until they were pressured by M$ to supply XP exclusively. Walmart could not keep GNU/Linux netbooks on the shelves because the supply dried up. They had no trouble selling the few units they could get on-line.
Where is the evidence of this “pressure”, Robert? You are simply inventing an explanation that you think fits your warped opinion of the matter. The simple marketing facts are that the OEMs do not need two solutions. Once a Windows solution is available, that is the end of it. They are only going to sell a fixed number of units and it is much more economic for them to have a single technology to deal with. If they have two technologies, they have to provide twice the support effort and have to deal with twice the SKUs and open themselves up to a stock imbalance situation.
All of that costs them money and Linux does nothing to recover that money.
The head of ASUS apologized to an M$ man at a trade show that an ASUS product with GNU/Linux was on display.
The essence of competition is that it’s never done. Why does M$ have to kill competition if no one will try a new product, ever? Everyone who tries GNU/Linux here likes it. It works. It’s fast. It’s free in both senses of the word. No one I know dislikes any of those characteristics. Today, I had my boss’s boss in here. He had never touched GNU/Linux before and liked it. He read some e-mail, converted some resumes and printed them.
Retailers have low margins, all of them. The guy that sells GNU/Linux will have a larger margin than the guy who sells that other OS because he can sell at a lower price, increase volume and beat his competitors. There is no competition in the market if everyone sells M$ and that’s what M$ wants. Why would anyone think M$ would not apply pressure to get what they want? They have the most aggressive salesmen on the planet. Read the US DOJ v M$ to see what they did to IBM, HP, etc. That was pressure. What makes you think they pushed less on ASUS that was upfront and public about deviating from M$’s plan?
“The head of ASUS apologized to an M$ man at a trade show that an ASUS product with GNU/Linux was on display.”
Wrong again, Robert. ASUS apologized to the world in regard to showing a device that they were not planning on releasing. It was a mistake, they said. Sorry about that.
“Everyone who tries GNU/Linux here likes it.”
That is, of course your own perception and that perception is, as we know, biased, but let us, for the sake of argument, say that it is true. Then the question becomes why do they like it there and not elsewhere?
The simple answer is that you are obviously spending a lot of time promoting it. And you are promoting it without any compensation from the Linux company, too. That is great for the Linux company, but it is bad for you, since you get no pay for your services, and I bet it is bad for your employer since you are doing it on company time, too. Let us further postulate that you have convinced a hundred people to enjoy Linux at no cost to them. If you want to convince a million people at that rate, it will take a mere ten thousand other like you, each convincing a hundred. That would still be less than one tenth of one percent of the computer users in the world. Maybe if there were ten million Roberts all diligently preaching the wonders of Linux, Linux usage might come to equal that of Windows, but that is so unlikely as to be ridiculous.
The problem facing Linux is that there are far to few advocates for any effective word of mouth campaign and there is no money in the Linux business to support any conventional kind of promotion at that sort of level.
You have high hopes, I am certain, but, in spite of the myth, the ant can’t move the rubber tree plant. Not in the real world.
“Read the US DOJ v M$ to see what they did to IBM, HP, etc. That was pressure. What makes you think they pushed less on ASUS that was upfront and public about deviating from M$’s plan?”
I don’t think there was any pressure, Robert. Compaq put the Netscape browser on some of their models in spite of a co-marketing agreement with Microsoft that did not allow that. The person who made the mistake was not authorized to do what he did and he was reprimanded and the Netscape browser was removed. That was a simple contract matter. Compaq accepted a consideration for agreeing to the exclusivity and they honored their commitment.
IBM wanted a price concession for Windows and DOS equal to Compaq’s and Microsoft told them that they had to meet the same conditions as Compaq, which essentially meant that IBM had to feature Windows in their advertising, use Windows internally, and offer Windows exclusively on various product lines. IBM didn’t want to do that, so they refused the discount. The only pressure on IBM was for them to save some money in exchange for some exclusivity.
ASUS used Linux on some products and terminated those products for many reasons that had nothing to do with Microsoft’s wishes. You don’t seem to have much of a sense of how OEMs distribute and sell systems and are just inventing things to fill in the gaps in your understanding.
A-C has a strange interpretation of the events…. see http://blogs.computerworld.com/microsoft_strikes_back_at_linux_netbook_push
amicus_curious wrote:
On the contrary, I spend very little time promoting GNU/Linux here. It promotes itself. I am a teacher. I teach. The IT I do defensively to allow me to do my job. I teach mathematics and computer courses. The technology I set up helps me do my job and I share it with others. Yesterday, for in stance, I was in my classroom from 9am to 3:30 pm doing my teaching thing. I spent two minutes in another classroom because I had an error in the configuration which caused the new machines to fail to boot occasionally. I fix it when I have the time. I addressed the staff on the issues at the last staff meeting weeks ago. People want IT that works. GNU/Linux does. People are coming to me asking me to do stuff for them. I do things after hours and on weekends mostly instead of watching TV or other time-wasting. I really enjoy seeing computers perform. That is my payoff. I see systems run effortlessly for months with GNU/Linux that struggle to boot with that other OS.
Everywhere in the world, people help people with IT. I am not alone in that role. The thing A-C neglects is that there are millions of people using GNU/Linux out there and they help others. That is the main mode of dispersion of GNU/Linux outside of business or servers, IMHO, and the number of non-business/non-server users of GNU/Linux are probably 30 million or so. The rate of growth this way is slow. It is not the rollout of a new product but steady growth by neighbour to neighbour transmission. The rate of growth has been strong for a decade and it will escalate with business adoption of thin clients and virtualization more widely. If everything is virtual, GNU/Linux will do everything.
Attack the messenger if you want but the message is still true. Denial will accomplish nothing. People can think for themselves.