On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, curious wrote:
> > Do you HONESTLY think that VA sells no MS? That they have no OEM agreement
> > with MS?
>
> hmmms didn't find VA's statement on the matter... so they might.. however
> going to penguin computings:
> http://www.penguincomputing.com/about.html
> states they don't...
Yeah, well Sam doesn't sell as many computers as you might think.
> > ::sigh:: You still don't get it. There isn't, by definition, ADEQUATE
> > other choices because of MS's bullying tactics.
>
> At what point is something considered adequate? If no other company is/was
> able to stand up to microsoft's marketing... (which is how microsoft
> became, and maintains it's success).. if customers weren't buying OS/2 or
> DRDOS to a degree that would have made a diffrence.. why should microsoft
> be sued? they won! for a while they have won.. in compition sometimes
> someone WINS...
You miss the point. They made deals that made the products NOT compete on
an even playing field.
I'll give you an example:
Apple wrote a great version of basic in 1984 for the Mac, back when MS was
mostly known for Basic. MS said "if you release that, we're not going to
renew your license for Applesoft" -- still a major source of their
revenue. In other words, that's an *anticompetitive* practice.
Now, as it happens, it was VB but ten years earlier. So...all of us
struggled with poorer tools because of MS.
That's ONE example. (MacBasic was VERY cool for its time)
--
_Deirdre * http://www.linuxcabal.net * http://www.deirdre.net
"Mars has been a tough target" -- Peter G. Neumann, Risks Digest Moderator
"That's because the Martians keep shooting things down." -- Harlan Rosenthal
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, retorting in Risks Digest 20.60
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