<OT> A bad day in Redmond

[Lonni J Friedman]

On 9/18/07, Joel Hammer <joel at hammershome.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 07:56:08PM -0400, Jerry McBride wrote:
> > On Monday 17 September 2007 07:06:52 pm Joel Hammer wrote:
> > > On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 09:04:16AM -0700, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/technology/17cnd-soft.html
> > > >
> > > > Seems the Europeans are not happy with Friends of Bill (no, not the guy
> > > > from Arkansas).
> > >
>
> If you read the news stories, both in the Wall Street
> Journal and the NY Times, this decision is not really
> welcome news for a number of big companies who have built
> up dominant positions in their industries, including Apple
> (left for dead a few years ago), Intel, and Qualcomm.
>
> MS got whacked in part for bundling its media player with
> its operating system. Nobody would buy the OS version
> without the media player, however, which was free.

Note, these are the same fools who think that paying for Windows is a
sensible decision.

>
> How the EU thinks forcing consumers to pay for and install
> a separate media player on their computer helps consumers
> is beyond me.

Who is being forced to pay for a separate media player?  Since when
are any maintstream media players being sold?  Joel, surely you're not
paying for yours, are you?

>
> This reminds me of a lawsuit brought by installers of
> car radios in the after market. GM starting making nice
> stereo systems standard on some cars (or all cars?) They
> got sued for limitation of competition, or something. I
> forget how the suit turned out. GM didn't control 95%
> of the auto market. I never could figure why anybody
> thought a car stereo system was not as intrinsic a part
> of a car as the seat or floor coverings or seat cushions,
> or anything else not absolutely necessary to make the car
> move and stop. How about all those after market installers
> of car air conditioners?

Again, you're missing the point.  Installing 3rd party, aftermarket
stereo systems is vastly different from installing your own.  It
speaks volumes that GM has only crappy stereoes and has to resort to
favoring a 3rd party to come up to par with the competition.

>
> Oh well, I guess the Europeans have a lot to teach the
> world about competition. Meanwhile, the EU divides up the
> 2 billion dollar fine among its members. Nice payday for
> the EU.
>
> Actually, as someone who hasn't given MS a penny since
> I bought my wife a windows laptop about 5 years ago, and
> only uses Linux computers unless forced to use windows at
> work, I think MS got a bad deal. The stockholders of MS
> will actually be transferring 2 billion of their assets
> to the EU. Bill Gates won't notice.

Then perhaps the stockholders should have seen the writing on the wall
years ago, and put their money elsewhere.  I hear Google shareholders
are quite happy these days.

Joel, with all your whining, I detect alot of sour grapes.  Get over
it, and move on with your life.  After all these years, I'd have
thought you would have let it go, but you continue to beat the same
dead horse.  Pity.

-- 
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L. Friedman                                    netllama at gmail.com
LlamaLand                       https://netllama.linux-sxs.org