Sysadmin Field Notes

March 25, 2005

vbbox.plan: The transmission tax weblog is a funny little made up story to illustrate the foolishness of forcing Microsoft to remove parts of Windows.

Funny thing is, I almost agree. Except that Microsoft, via it's predatory practices, drove everyone else out. Yes, their competitors made some calls. Maybe they wouldn't have survived on their own merits. But we'll never know, because Microsoft leveraged its monopoly to drive them out of business. Predatory pricing, arm-twisting licensing agreements, etc... All normal in day to day business, so it's not like I necessarily fault MS for it. However, the practices were deemed pretty much illegal, and it was only through heavy wrangling and lobbying that MS escaped with just a wrist slap.

Business is business, may the best company win, no problem. But for God's sake, don't -whine- when the occasional court case goes against you and you have to do something odd to a product, where the courts are just winging it, trying to restore some sort of parity. We call the court's reaction closing the barn door after all the horses have escaped.

Personally, I just think it should have been a fine. A big one. You can't legislate features in software, that's stupid. But you can punish for illegal OEM agreements that block competitors out of the marketplace, even after repeated warnings and adjustments. Big fine; take away the cash reserve and competitors might actually be inclined to enter the market. If Microsoft really is as good as they claim, then they'll quickly rise to the top without illegally leveraging their monopoly, and no one can say anything except "I guess they provided a better product."

I think I've written all this before somewhere before. Oh well.