[Coco] RE: [Color Computer] Linux a cousin to OS-9

[Frederick D Provoncha]

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 18:04:47 -0400 Mike Pepe <lamune at doki-doki.net>
writes:
> 
> Basil,
> 
> Not to continue this off-topic rant, but you toss around Microsoft 
> and 
> monopoly like it's some kind of "fact".
> 
> Microsoft is not a monopoly: Sorry to burst your bubble.
> 
> A monopoly was, say, Bell Telephone in the US before it was broken 
> up. 
> You wanted a telephone? You had to buy Bell's telephone and service 
> or 
> you yelled out the window; there was no choice. Same goes for 
> Standard 
> Oil and some of the other classic examples from history. Even your 
> electric company is a monopoly. (even if it's been "deregulated") 
> That 
> doesn't stop you from buying a big diesel generator, parking it in 
> your 
> back yard and cutting yourself off from the grid.
> 
> Microsoft was never really a monopoly. If you wanted a computer, you 
> 
> could buy one. Sure the store-bought machines probably all had DOS 
> or 
> Windows on them, but Microsoft couldn't stop you from buying the 
> parts 
> off the shelf and building your own PC without their cruft 
> pre-loaded on 
> it. You could then be free to load whatever you want, or if you're 
> really good, write something yourself and run that.
> 
> Additionally, Microsoft always had some sort of competition, be it 
> from 
> Novell, Coherent, IBM, BSDI, or in more recent (heh) days from 
> Linux, 
> FreeBSD, etc. In that sense they were never a monopoly. No more so 
> than, 
> say, Microware being the only source of OS-9, or Tandy forcing you 
> to 
> run Color BASIC when you hit the power switch on your CoCo.
> 
> Just because they're big and powerful doesn't mean they're a 
> monopoly. 
> Nobody from Redmond is pointing a gun at my head and telling me what 
> I 
> should run on my PC.
> 
> -Mike

Since my degree is in Economics, and since in my job I work with a team
of economists, I figure I ought to comment on this post. 

Strictly speaking, Mike, you're correct. A 'pure monopoly' is defined as
a company that produces 100% of the output of an industry. Such a
situation, however, is very rare. The best example in the real world is
the example you cited, of utilities such as the electric company.

Since alternatives do exist to Windows, strictly speaking Microsoft is
not a pure monopoly in the operating system industry.

However, there is a spectrum that exists between the two extremes of a
'pure monopoly' and 'perfect competition' (the latter term being a
situation of many firms, each individually producing a small percentage
of total industry output). In the case of the operating system industry,
I would categorize it as being a 'near-monopoly'. Microsoft may not have
a 100% domination, but I've heard that it is around 90% or so. To me
that's close enough. At that level of dominance, a firm ACTS like a
monopoly, and Microsoft definitely does that in my opinion.

So technically Microsoft isn't a pure monopoly, but it's close enough
(too close, if you ask me).

Fred Provoncha
Stansbury Park, UT