More on Microsoft
Doc Searls talks about the MS settlement on his weblog, concluding with the following paragraph:
This whole legal exercize has been an enormous waste from the start. We would all have been better served if the rest of us, including Netscape, Sun, Oracle and everybody else who wanted to use the feds as a blunt instrument had instead taken their case to the market. There it would have stood a chance.
(I’d provide a link to the article itself, but it was 404. Oops.)
I’m not sure what “taken their case to the market” means exactly (could be a number of things, and I’m probably missing the point) but I thought the whole case was about not having access to the market.
The startup screen and the desktop, for example, are major points of entry to this particular market, and if Microsoft controls access here illegally, then you’re not taking anything to market, mate. Forget it.
In a sense the plaintiffs did go crying to the feds, but guess what; they had a case and MS was found by more than one court to be as guilty as sin. Anti-trust law exists to ensure fair competition, not specific outcomes of that competition. The case went to court precisely because the market, thanks to Microsoft, was prevented from deciding anything.
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Posted to Computers • 2001.11.06 (Tue) • 18:29
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