Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy

[amicus_curious]

"Rjack" <user@example.net> wrote in message 
G5ednYZ9jpA2OubUnZ2dnUVZ_hSWnZ2d@giganews.com">news:G5ednYZ9jpA2OubUnZ2dnUVZ_hSWnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Rjack wrote:
>
> From the findings of fact in US v. Microsoft (1998)
>
> http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Open-Source Applications Development
>
> 51. Since application developers working under an open-source model are 
> not looking to recoup their investment and make a profit by selling copies 
> of their finished products, they are free from the imperative that compels 
> proprietary developers to concentrate their efforts on Windows. In theory, 
> then, open-source developers are at least as likely to develop 
> applications for a non-Microsoft operating system as they are to write 
> Windows-compatible applications. In fact, they may be disposed 
> ideologically to focus their efforts on open-source platforms like Linux. 
> Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many developers in 
> the world willing to devote their talents to writing, testing, and 
> debugging software pro bono publico. A small corps may be willing to 
> concentrate its efforts on popular applications, such as browsers and 
> office productivity applications, that are of value to most users. It is 
> unlikely, though, that a sufficient number of open-source developers will 
> commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of 
> applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to 
> present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to 
> Windows. In practice, then, the open- source model of applications 
> development may increase the base of applications that run on non- 
> Microsoft PC operating systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that 
> prevents such operating systems from challenging Windows.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Note the prophetic finding of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson:
>
> "In practice, then, the open- source model of applications development may 
> increase the base of applications that run on non- Microsoft PC operating 
> systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that prevents such operating 
> systems from challenging Windows."
>
> So what has changed? A gain of maybe 2% (exclude proprietary Apple) in 
> market share of non-MS operating systems in the past ten years?
>
> Seems to me that the open source business models are an abject failure 
> compared to proprietary models.
It is not really an issue as to whether or not Microsoft has effective 
market power in the desktop OS market.  That was a dispute ten years ago and 
is largely settled that it does.  What is more important is how that limits 
Microsoft's conduct and what to do about any violations.   Microsoft has 
been under some specific orders and has submitted to specific scrutiny of 
its operations by two watchdog committees staffed with anti-Microsoft 
personnel and charged with the task of making sure that there is nothing 
goin on that violates the court mandates and any other antitrust regulation. 
There has been no action brought in the past 7 or 8 years that has resulted 
in anything new.

Open source business models are kind of silly if you ask me.  Consider the 
real impact that they have had.  What are the significant products in the 
open source universe?  Linux itself and the rest of the LAMP group, Apache, 
MySql, and PHP certainly.  Open Office, too.  A bunch of utilities that have 
been around since Grant was a cadet in terms of the GNU utilities used by 
the Linux advocates.  Anything else that you can think of that challenges 
the commercial world?  The major activities in the LAMP and OO world seem to 
be tail-chasing Microsoft developments.  Sun has glomed onto MySQL and is 
trying to turn it into a money maker on its own.  I don't see where a whole 
lot of openness is really a factor with it.  The rest of the products are 
really in the "who cares?" category.  No one wants to get into the web 
server business with IIS and Apache both being free of cost, you can be a 
web developer and use ASP.NET or ASP or PHP as you like, no one cares except 
the web developers and they all run on Windows anyway.

Windows is popular because the market for PC software had to pick a standard 
just like video tape had to pick VHC or Beta or High Def DVD had to pick 
Blue-ray or the other one.  In the early days of computers, the industry 
picked MS-DOS and clones because it had to have a standard and in the 1990s 
the industry picked Windows over OS/2 for the same reason.  It isn't a 
classic monopoly formed by getting a corner on the market through 
acquisition.

It is doubtful that Microsoft can be much of a target anymore.  Linux cannot 
make much of a dent even for free and neither can the rest of the OSS 
lineup.