ORIGINAL: Marauders
Your premise has been invalidated.
Please point me to the message that shows evidence that Microsoft does not have a de facto monopoly and has not used unethical and illegal practices.
The fact that there is a strong Linux movement and that there is a strong Mac Market as well as others is proof enough.
The fact that 3rd Parties do not make the games you want for the platforms you want is not proof of a monopoly.
I am not going to comment on whether they used ethical practices or not since that is very subjective.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
You asked where you could get a machine that didn't run Windows and Walmart, Sun and Mac all offer those.
The Sun platform is used as servers and workstations. Until relatively recently, these used the SPARC CPU and Solaris OS. Try using software from Best Buy, Circuit City, or Wal Mart on those. They do offer Intel based machines now with Windows as an option. Sun systems with Solaris are not being sold at most local electronics stores.
But that is the point. Before MS there was no buying from Best Buy. It was pretty much all proprietary hardware with proprietary software.
The fact that Sun systems are not being sold at BestBuy is not proof that you cannot buy one.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
The Macintosh is considered an Apple, and I specifically stated computers other than Apples. The Macintosh has a proprietary operating system as well, and it has low market share. There are software packages available for it but nothing close to what is available on the PC. Also note here that Microsoft stole code from Apple and then leveraged Microsoft Office for Mac to reach a settlement out of court. This is an example of Microsoft using Windows to bundle Word and other programs to make other Microsoft products their own de facto standard, and then using that to leverage other products or get away with illegal and unethical practices.
Why would you exclude Apples?
As for the rest I am not going to comment on it.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
As far as Wal Mart stripped down PC's go, those PC's were dead in the water, and most people that did purchase them went out and purchased Windows XP anyway because there wasn't much consumer software for the non-Windows OS. Of course, Wal Mart was happy to stock stand alone versions of Windows XP Home.
This sounds like a big sob story. It sounds exactly like what you were looking for but nobody wanted it.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
It is called market availability of alternatives. It is a factor in determining if an item has a legal de facto monopoly, and it is a market barrier. Again, you are bringing up points that I have already been over and you would understand if you were educated in this area. Please read the major court cases involved, as they explain this rather well, as does the quote from United States vs Microsoft that I posted regarding this.
The Judges are not technical. They did not know you could build a Linux box and the market has changed a lot since that case as well.
Surely they would not overlook Apple now.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
You may want to look this up as well, because most Microsoft products were not originally developed by Microsoft. They are not the innovators you believe them to be.
Are you saying that MS played no part in getting cheap PC’s and Internet into homes? Every machine could be like the Sun workstation. That is how the market was before MS.
ORIGINAL: Marauders
If you are unwilling to look up the facts of the cases involved, or the history of Microsoft in general, your posts offer little more than your personal feelings on the matter. As I stated above, if you believe that Microsoft is a benevolent corporation that only uses honest and ethical business practices then so be it, but ignoring the case law and history of Microsoft will do little to convince anyone who had done even basic research on this topic to agree with your point of view.
If you are unwilling to accept facts when they are handed to you there is not much I can do. There are alternatives. Yes they suck but if you want a MS machine then buy an MS machine. If not buy a Sun Workstation.
Trying to bring ethics into this is a whole different matter.
