Microsoft Monopoly: Yes/No

Posted by Matthew Wulfman on May 22, 1998 at 17:58:15:

Microsoft is not a full monopoly, nor are they as evil and dangerous as they could be.
However, they are a new variant of the old breed of monopoly, drawing on pr tools and user databases, profiling and all sorts of new and sexy things. However, I would be quite willing to name a university facility after Bill Gates on one day and sign a petition to see
him trust busted the next. Microsoft is like any organism, a blend, of good bad and indifferent. However, the sheer economic power of it needs to be disassembled for the good of all.
Microsoft is not the perfect beast but then neither are humans. Microsoft is a formidable collection of humans and humans in an imbalnce of power, whether against people, nature or ourselves are phenomenally distructive without some check on our course.

The question is whether business and consumers will be willing to research choices and make them independently. It is far more efficient to have 9X percent of the market using the same format for a particular type of document. most medium and small businesses are simply saying everybody uses MSO 97 so we better too.
Everybody is parroting everybody else saying it is the best and industry leader when quite frankly, nobody has even evalated a current version on the other suites.

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: Microsoft is not a full monopoly, nor are they as evil and dangerous as they could be. : However, they are a new variant of the old breed of monopoly, drawing on pr tools and user databases, profiling and all sorts of new and sexy things. However, I would be quite willing to name a university facility after Bill Gates on one day and sign a petition to see : him trust busted the next. Microsoft is like any organism, a blend, of good bad and indifferent. However, the sheer economic power of it needs to be disassembled for the good of all. : Microsoft is not the perfect beast but then neither are humans. Microsoft is a formidable collection of humans and humans in an imbalnce of power, whether against people, nature or ourselves are phenomenally distructive without some check on our course. : The question is whether business and consumers will be willing to research choices and make them independently. It is far more efficient to have 9X percent of the market using the same format for a particular type of document. most medium and small businesses are simply saying everybody uses MSO 97 so we better too. : Everybody is parroting everybody else saying it is the best and industry leader when quite frankly, nobody has even evalated a current version on the other suites.