On Tuesday 17 July 2001 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> Robert Haeckl wrote:
> > me. You may not be able to access some of your favorite sites unless
> > you buy into the .NET plan. Microsoft knows they can't control the wire
> > but maybe through proprietary servers they can control the end points of
> > the Internet. Maybe it's a bit paranoid but in view of Microsoft's
> > business practices a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted.
>
> While I agree with everything you said in your message, this bit here is
> a statement that I see repeated over and over when people talk about
> Microsoft "owning" the Internet.
>
Lets look at that this way:
1. By MS giving up certain rights they create competition with Linux. That
with competition MS is no longer a monopolist. This has numerous very
positive legal and financial implications.
2. If MS is not a monopolists then they can limit access to the content they
provide. It would not be too difficult to arrange it where it would be very
difficult to almost impossible to log on to a MS network without MS software
which you have to pay a monthly fee for.
3. Once you have established exclusivity then you can control who sees which
movie and which set of entertainment that is available. Recall that MS is
partnered with Disney and Nintendo while it owns NBC now so this is heavy
content directed.
4. Basic premises of Buffet in his invest philosophy is to own monopolies
because then you can collect what wall street calls "value added", economist
call"economic rent", and we call extortion.
5. As far as the business world they are one of the big pushers behind linux.
Their philosophy of reducing cost guarantees that when Linux desk top is
adequate it will replace MS's desktop. Most basic business software does not
need to change very often. How often would you need to upgrade your word
processor after you have a working one? How often would you need to change
your basic network software if there were no securities holes? Or your spread
sheet software? Point is from a MS profit view point that these are not
"value added products". There is no monopoly profit to be made here so you
can give this up and utilize your resources where you can develop new
monopoly power, entertainment.
Frank
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 16:12:09 EDT