Monopoly

Mi limito a riportare alcuni articoli e brani interessanti:

1. Is Apple the new Microsoft?
   
   The market, however, corrects issues such as that. In the case of Microsoft's "monopoly," Linux, Firefox and now Apple prove that customers always had choices.
   
2. Europe’s new ‘monopoly’ tariff on Microsoft bypasses WTO
   
   The EU Competition Competitor Neelie Kroes said that the EU now expects a “significant drop” in Microsoft’s overwhelming market share.  In fact Kroes even hinted that perhaps somewhere around 50% but not exactly is the correct market share.  Kroes’ spokesman Jonathan Todd clarified that:

   “Once illegal abuse has been removed and competitors are free to compete on the merits, the logical consequence of that would be to expect Microsoft’s market share to fall,”

   So I can translate this (via the contrapositive rule of logic) that if the market share doesn’t fall, then that “logically” must means that free competition doesn’t yet exist and illegal abuse must still be rampant.  That leaves absolutely no other possible explanation for Microsoft’s dominant market share so what’s next if crippling PC makers doesn’t work?  Will the EC then order ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) to port all of their applications to Linux with equivalent performance, functionality, stability, and validation if they wish to continue doing business in Europe?  Where does the madness end?

3. Has Google actually read U.S. v. Microsoft?
   
   The weaknesses in Google's argument are that it has nothing to do with the original Microsoft case or with the purpose of the consent order, and that it does not relate to the conditions of the market that have developed in the years since the case ended.

Una sola osservazione e una domanda: avere un monopolio in U.S. non è di per sé illegale. Se Firefox non fosse gratuito ma costasse 80$ avrebbe la stessa quota di mercato?

-quack

Quest'anno le M&Ms sono nere e arancioni: