"Rjack" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
amicus_curious wrote:
"Rjack" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Due to legal antitrust concerns, Microsoft is always going to allow
about 20% of the total market to competitors...
As romantic as that may sound, it is the wrong view of the situation.
Microsoft's continued dominance of the PC OS market
is due to tried and true notions of market dynamics, nothing more and
nothing less.
Microsoft would crush Linux (and probably Apple) with software
patent litigation if the D.O.J. antitrust division weren't
hovering about.
Not very likely. There is nothing to be gained in doing that. Microsoft is
a business and a successful one at that. They are well advised by the best
graduates of HBS and Stanford and are not likely to make many business
mistakes. Their market is theirs to have and hold as long as it lasts.
That is not to say that PC software markets will not decline over time as
they become saturated with prior art, but as long as there is a buck to be
made, it will be Microsoft's buck.
The PC market, as orchestrated by Microsoft, is mature as such
things go and already they are branching out into other
fields in order to find new worlds to conquer. The PC OS
market is very mature and consumer expectations, attitudes,
and tastes are firmly set. There is no way on earth to unseat
Microsoft here and there is little reason to do so.
Something like OS X running on cheap Intel hardware would be a
terrible threat to Microsoft's desktop. Apple would never allow
this to happen though. Apple's hardware is the most overpriced
scam on the market. Apple leverages it operating system on it's
outrageously priced hardware -- it works in their business model
but could potentially pose a real threat to Microsoft's desktop
running on affordable hardware.
Apple is a niche player in a very comfortable niche and, as you note, they
are not likely to open it up to the low price producers to allow a price war
to develop. Microsoft will leave them alone and they will leave Microsoft
alone.
The FOSS fellas are miffed at the market success and vast
wealth of the MSFT founders, but they are fated to be miffed
for all time.
New things come up all the time, for example Google and Facebook and
such. They are the star performers today and will
likely pale in the future to be replaced by something else. It is
nature's way and read of "Product Life Cycles" in the marketing lore for
the details.
Sincerely,
Rjack
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