Re. Larry Rappaport's comments re. "restraint of trade" issues:
Panasonic's dealer agreement also says you can't sell to clients who are more than six hours away by surface transportation. The obvious rationale being that in the event of an emergency repair, you have to be able to go to site, and replace the machine if need be.
I seriously doubt your attorney can argue that the above also constitutes restraint of trade. And as well it might be argued that the policy against advertising of prices on the web is specifically intended to prevent the mass-solicitation of business outside of one's 6-hour service radius.
Re. "someone with political influence might try to persuade a US attorney to go after Panasonic..."
Political influence to get a law enforced? That's frankly shameful, though I suppose it's emblematic of the depths to which our system of justice has sunk. If Panasonic are breaking the law, they should be prosecuted, as should I, as should you, and the respective horses we all rode in on.
However, you never hear of Panasonic getting sued, prosecuted, or otherwise scandalized. They're as clean as a whistle; good old-fashioned business ethics; no scandals.
Re. VOIP: Sure, plus or minus QOS issues. Open-source PBXs, fine. In fact we're working on designing a few things, some of which will plug into Panasonic machines.
For the sake of consistency, I'll ask, what's in your server closet? Microsoft, Mac, or Linux/BSD/etc.? If the general principle is that monopolies are bad, and competition is good, why the deafening silence on this list about the Windows monopoly? (In our case: servers, Linux and BSD; desktops/laptops, MacOS, Windows XP, and BSD.)
Re. Charles re. "civil discussion" w/o flames/rants:
Thanks; and yeah I appreciate it also from the folks on the other side of this debate. Maybe it's a sign that there is hope for American politics after all:-)
Re. Ablecomm: They sound like a good oldschool interconnect or remanufacturer (like BECO) who went on line. From what you've said, they're technically competent, they care about the industry, they've demonstrated long-term commitment, that's good. This particular instance also sheds more light on the underlying moral/ethical issues, about which more in a subsequent post.
-George
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