Subject:
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Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 13 Oct 2001 00:42:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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697 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Horst Lehner writes:
> > > > False. There are no natural monopolies. Monopolies only exist because there
> > > > are unnatural barriers to entry erected by governments
> > >
> > > ...or corporations...
> >
> > With government assistance.
> >
> > Free market corporations can erect no such barriers. Not effective ones,
> > anyway.
>
> Can you elaborate a bit on government assistance for, say, Microsoft, then?
MS is not a monopoly.
It has competitors, and effective ones at that. MS is dominant in certain
market segments but since there are few or no barriers to entry other than
MS competence at making good product, the net result of MS dominance (not
monopoly) is that we pay less for OS and app than we would without them.
Classic dominance situation. c.f. the Standard oil "monopoly" which was
*not*, and under which we paid the lowest price for oil ever, or since. See
Friedman.
Before everyone says MS is trash... whatever. Get over yourself. Consider
the alternatives. Windows, Word, eXcel and explorer are superior products
that have served us exceedingly well. Bugs and all.
In fact, you inadvertantly raise a connected but dissimilar point. MS did
*not* get any government assistance! And voila... look what happened.
Industries that get the least "assistance" and the least regulation and the
least shielding from big nasty competitors tend to produce the best stuff
with the fastest growth and make the most money for all concerned. (MS makes
*me* heaps of money (even though I currently own way less MSFT than I wish I
did) because I can do things with MS systems I could never do back in 1980
for a reasonable cost... That is money in my pocket.) The PC industry is THE
canonical example of this.
Arguably the internet revolution bubble burst at least in part because of
the Clinton DOJ going after MS, and the rumbles about taxing internet
transactions (well, maybe 20% of it is due to that, the other is 40%
irrational exuberance and 40% greenspan putting the brakes on way too hard
for no reason at all that I can see. Some Randite HE is! (just kidding) )
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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| (...) Hmm. I'd agree with your ratios, but I'd nudge them around until there was room to add "25% over-estimating the efficiency (and under-estimating the cost) of e-business" A lot of the crash was due to assumptions about what costs were involved (...) (23 years ago, 13-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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| (...) there (...) I'd re-word that "...competence at making a reasonable product and marketing it well," (...) Again, I'd say reasonable, not necessarily superior. Depends what features you're comparing, what you need to do. And they're (...) (23 years ago, 13-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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| (...) Pardon me? Operating Systems didn't cost a cent before Microsoft entered the game ... (...) So, Windows is a better OS than others in the marketplace, Word is better than all other word processing apps, Excel is better than Lotus 1-2-3, (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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| (...) What about the integration between OS and applications? Different market segments right? So why should one corporation be able to leverage its products in one segment as a direct consequence of its dominance in another segment? Cf Nestlé. No (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Gotta love Oracle...
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| (...) Can you elaborate a bit on government assistance for, say, Microsoft, then? I really don't see them. Or would you say Microsoft has no monopoly on PC operating systems? They start to fear Linux these days, but only due to *regulations*, not (...) (23 years ago, 12-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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