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I read the Times today that MS is in the process of being fined by over 400 million euros for breachng competition laws.
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armstrong said:True, government has many tools at its disposal, one of them being fines. Why not fines? It should work eventually, and it denies companies the use of ill-gotten funds.
Maybe not at you, but they did stick their proverbial big guns on PC sellers and say, "do what we want or else." PC sellers who refuse to cooperate would be unable to compete with those who toe the official MS line.
octobus said:The last time I checked there was only one provider of Windows OS. Thus Microsoft has a pure monopoly thanks to producing %100 of the market output.
Some general characteristics of a monopoly firm:
A single seller
(Microsoft)
Produces branded goods
(MS Office, Windows and etc)
Creates barriers to entry
(e.g Windows source code is not licensed to third parties)
Zeeble said:I would have posted a response here, but it would have been the same thing as octobus has just said.
theparrot said:Why not fines? becuase they do not reconsitute that whome is claimed to be harmed. Again if they are being honest they would give the money to the parties alegidley harmed.
Instead, they keep it and the now saved consumers pay more to pay off the fines.
wrong, are are not the sole producer of that type of program. When assesing whether MS is a monopoply, you also need to take the size into account.theparrot said:nope, by your writing every firm is a monoply, incuding me and any programs I have written... even my special version of 'hello world , I am an monopoly to octopus" program I just wrote. No one else can sell it , I own the copyright. Only Ford sold escorts so they are a monolpoly? Only apple Macintosh computers so they are a monopoly?
armstrong said:Ah, but the money does eventually trickle to "the people". Every government raises taxes, or takes out loans; any money raised through fines means that much less taxes, or less loans. Its possible for the government to distribute the 400,000,000 Euro, but because of the number of affected, the amount might be too small to be worth the bother. I mean, how effective would it be to distribute 10 Euro each to 40 million MS license holders? Now maybe when the third fine comes around, perhaps another magnitude higher (4 billion!?), then it might actually be worth distributing.
You're saying that the fines will cause MS to increase its price? You mean MS is now charging lower prices than it could and still make the most possible money? I think not. They know very well how much they can sell at various pricepoints, and of course select the pricepoint that maximizes profits. If they increase their prices because of the fines, then they will actually make less money. Bill is smarter than that.
Zeeble said:wrong, are are not the sole producer of that type of program. When assesing whether MS is a monopoply, you also need to take the size into account.
e.g. You produce and unbranded program, which gets you around 0.001% market share. MS produces a BRANDED OS which has well over 90% market share. MS has a monopoly in the fact that no other can produce Windows, whereas another CAN produce the same program that you have. The is the difference between perfect competition and a monopoly. The OS market is not perfect competition, a duopoly or an oligopoly, which leaves only monopoly.
Zeeble said:I find it rather funny that you think that 400 million euros actually has an impact on taxes and the such like. 400million is not much. The UK alone raises £500bn in taxes. So the whole of europe is more than the US. Anyway, the EU does not decide spending on things like roads etc individual govt.s do. If the UK alone pays £30million per day to the EU, then I am sure that 400 million euros does not make a massive difference. This fine is not money orientated, it was soley about punishing MS for breaking the law.
Zeeble said:ok, please don't insult me.
I was simply trying to put down the argument that the EU is only doing it to fund itself. It has nothing to do with the EU, it has to do with MS breaking the law. 400 million euros is a lot, even to MS. This will draw some blood and make them think twice about exploiting the market in the future.
Zeeble said:ok, 400 million is a lot to MS, but not to the EU, ok?
There are no barriers to entry when it just comes to coding your OS, BUT if you actually want to get it out there, then you need to actually make your own brand of computers, like Apple has demonstrated.
Take this scenario: You make a brilliant OS, better than XP, you approch MS manufacturers such as Dell, and ask them to convert to your OS, they will tell you to go back to your day job. Simply because they can't shift computers unless its running windows.