Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: OT: Hamilton v. Microsoft lawsuit complaint is now online
From: "Dave Howe" <DaveHowe () cmn sharp-uk co uk>
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:36:30 +0100
Jeroen Massar [mailto:jeroen () unfix org] wrote: Quite offtopic. But what I still wonder is why the heck one isn't allowed to do business and become large. Is it all jealousy? If they where so bad why do they get the revenue and not your company producing super duper software?
Its not quite that bad (although the way the US government tends to bend the rules in favour of big political contributors is well known, and leaning the other way a bit just restores balance). Once a company gets more than a certain amount of market share, it has the ability to influence that market (and related markets) simply because you *must* use their products to interact with other users - IF (and only if) they can prevent other manufacturers in the same market from interacting cleanly and/or keep changing their "standards" so competitors gain a tarnish of "if you go with them, you will have to wait for a few weeks every time the standard changes while they catch up, and that could cost you business". Because that is true, it is bad for users in general for the company to be able to do this - if you *must* use their product to compete, they can charge whatever they like for that product and/or force you to buy their *other* product (in a market where they aren't currently strong) in order to obtain the product you need. This means making illegal for a company in such a position some tactics that are perfectly legal for their competitors (who aren't in that position) as you can always dump the competitors if you don't like their terms. To use an analogy - if there are a number of competing road owners, it is in all their interests to allow cars from other roads onto their own roads (and for cars from their roads to be able to travel on other owners). If more than half the roads are owned by one company, it is in the interests of that company to stop allowing traffic to and from one (any one) of the other owners . It is also in the interest of that company to buy up or form "strategic partnerships" with (ie, get agreement from them to do what they are told) smaller road owners, possibly at the same time as threatening to cut them off from the majority of the road network and cars if they don't play ball. At some point also the road owner can think about getting into the car and car fuel markets - knowing he can leverage "correct" decisions about which car to buy or which fuel to use by initially making his roads more hostile to other people's products, and finally by insisting you buy their choice of car/fuel or you won't be allowed to be a customer of their road..... _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- RE: OT: Hamilton v. Microsoft lawsuit complaint is now online Schmehl, Paul L (Oct 03)
- Re: OT: Hamilton v. Microsoft lawsuit complaint is now online Dave Howe (Oct 03)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: OT: Hamilton v. Microsoft lawsuit complaint is now online Tim Saunders (Oct 03)
- RE: OT: Hamilton v. Microsoft lawsuit complaint is now online Andy Wood (Oct 03)