Josh Coffman said:
>
> I also never bought into that monopoly thing... MS
> isn't a monopoly; it is(was?) an oligopoly. I'm not
> sure if that's the right word, but basically a seller
> or group of sellers that have such a large portion of
> the market that thay basically have a strangle hold of
> potential buyers. Like a monopoly, but not an absence
> of choices. Problem for the MS-is-monopoly crowd is
> that an oligopoly isn't illegal. Otherwise, the
> utility companies would also be in violation.

MS was declared by a court of law to be a monopoly.  I guess you don't
agree with that ruling.  One of the MS practices that helped the court
arrive at that ruling was this factual scenerio:

You sell computers.  You want to sell Windows pre-installed on those
computers.  MS says you have to *pay* for a Windows license for *every*
computer you sell, *regardless of whether or not* Windows is actually
installed on it.  But the computer will have Solaris X86 on it.  Have to
pay MS for a Windows license anyway.  If you don't agree with this
condition, MS will not allow you to sell *any* computers with Windows on
it.

Such a demand can only work if the demander is a monopoly.  For a consumer
computer seller you could not operate your business without accepting
their demand.  That is monopoly power.

Currently contracts with MS appearently state that if you want to sell
Windows every computer you sell must ship with an OS.  So, when
manufacturers want to ship a computer without an OS, who are under this
contract, will trow a CD of FreeDOS or something similar into the box,
just to be in compliancep[1].  It's still a pretty draconian requirement
for a contract but at least the manufacturers don't have to pay for a
license that did not even ship.

Alan

[1] One example:
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=170498&seqNum=3&rl=1


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