Ok. It's been awhile since I gave one of my "Microsoft is *not* a monopoly" rants. And I don't want to give one here. But let's just agree to disagree.
I believe in free enterprise. I believe in ownership. What that means is, you can't tell me what to do with my stuff. And that includes you not being able to tell me how much to sell my stuff for, or to whom. If I own a store, and I want to charge $50 for Widget A to the nice old man who drops off my paper in the morning - I can - if I want to charge $75 for the same widget to the average customer - I can, and if I want to charge a buck 50 for that same item to the hot chick that works in the shop next door - who the hell are you to stop me? Same goes for Microsoft. If they want to charge people with green eyes $150 for Windows XP - people with blue eyes $350 - and people with brown eyes $50 - that's up to them. It's their product. If they want to charge $5000 to IBM, $2000 to HP, and $23.99 to Dell - it's their product. I'm aware that I might be at odds with some anti-trust laws or whatever. But that's my opinion. There are plenty of laws I don't agree with. I'm sure that there are some people on this list don't agree with software patents - but they are the law. Just because something is a law doesn't make it right. (BTW, I don't like software patients either.) I don't like everything Microsoft does. I don't work for Microsoft. I don't think they make the best software. (Although, I love the Xbox, but that's hardware.) But I also don't believe they are evil, and I don't believe using price breaks and incentives for using only their software is wrong. IBM didn't have to sell Windows PCs. I imagine if they had sold only OS/2 on their machines - it would still be in production today, and Windows wouldn't own nearly as much of the market as they do now. Back in 1995, Windows didn't have the following it does now. IBM shouldn't have caved. It was their mistake, and now OS/2 is dead. And, from what I've heard, a lot of people thought it was a better OS. Apple doesn't sell Windows. Apple makes hardware. Apple has it's own OS. Apple's OS is better (IMHO, and many others) than Windows. IBM could have been like Apple. Nobody forced them to sell Windows. -Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
