Comments for Microsoft and Apple: The History Casey Mulligan Doesn't Know at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://www.cepr.net Thu, 23 May 2013 02:23:52 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17106 Microsoft is the Standard Oil of its era. Microsoft was given a monopoly by another monopolist (IBM) who was in the middle of an anti-trust case (back in the days when that actually happened). IBM couldn't take the risk of adding another monopoly to their portfolio. Since then Microsoft behaves just as Standard Oil did. They move into an area and try to buy the competition. If the competition won't sell, they copy their product, price it below the market, and run the competition out of business. With no significant competition, the price goes back up and the manipulated profits come rolling in. Then onto the next area. It's no coincidence that the only real competition to Windows (Linux) has to be a free software in order to have any hope of competing. - FoonTheElder Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:09:39 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17045 Universal comment for all Casey Mulligan pieces. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat - wkj Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:47:30 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17043 If that is true then Mulligan needs a Mulligan on this one. I believe still well over 80% of computers still use the Windows OS. You cannot rely on units shipped to get a clear understanding how dominant MS still is as a software producer. They can still exert a lot of influence on personal computing. A large number of individuals and companies simply upgrade Windows or acquire licenses rather than waste money on buying a new PC. Most of Apple's money is coming from higher margin, consumer gadgets that appeal to a large audience like those using mobile devices. - Jay Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:29:12 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17041 Casey also ignores (as some of his commenters point out) the fact that the monopoly claims had as much to do with MS trying to force other software companies (Netscape, Wordperfect, Lotus) out of competition with MS products (Explorer and Office) as it did with Apple. Yes, Apple has persevered and expanded into markets that basically didn't exist then, to its great profit, but the basic points that MS was sued over were true. - MacCruiskeen Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:07:01 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17038 Business and economics "reporters" consistently mischaracterize the antitrust case against Microsoft. As Dean mentioned, the antitrust case was not targeted against Microsoft's monopoly concerning Windows but was targeted against Microsoft leveraging that monopoly for competitive advantage in other markets -- e.g., browsers, word-processing and spreadsheets. However, the journalists kept characterizing the case as being similar to the AT&T or Standard Oil cases. - H-Bob Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:23:19 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17021 When Microsoft helped bail out Apple and promised to keep making MS Office for Mac, it also helped put the final nail in the coffin of WordPerfect and other Novell office applications, since from then on MS Office would be the standard on both Mac and Windows platforms. Gates may have kept one competitor alive, but in the process helped kill off another. - David M Thu, 21 Jun 2012 04:00:33 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17020 How lucrative is the server market? Microsoft may have lost 50% of this market, but what is that in total operating system dollars? Linux may make sense if you have or are a computer expert, but it's not on track to take over from Windows in the home market soon (although it might do so if its plug-and-play capability is improved). - skeptonomist Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:40:58 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17019 The history of the computer industry is a complex story of lost and retained monopolies, as determined partly naturally but partly by enforcement of copyrights and patents in court. Apple went to court to enforce its exclusive right to make and sell the original Apple, based on copyright of its software. It won and consequently nobody but Apple makes computers running its operating systems. IBM chose not to enforce its patents and copyrights, so lost control of the PC market, which has been highly competitive from early days. This is why Macintoshes cost twice as much as PCs. Microsoft's DOS was the better of the two operating systems offered by IBM, and now it has a natural monopoly on the operating system but not the hardware of PCs. The monopoly is natural because it would be inefficient to have many competing operating systems. Microsoft's monopoly is something that probably should be highly regulated, but so far it's hard to argue that it has caused much harm, although Microsoft does tend to use it to push its other software as in several anti-trust cases. - skeptonomist Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:34:44 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17012 So Mulligan doesn't understand network monopolies. What else is new. If the entire earth was separated into two enormous markets, each controlled by one MNC, Mulligan would claim everyone is better off because it could have been a single market controlled by one monopolist. If the two MNCs merged, Mulligan would then claim everyone is still better off because it's a private corporation rather than government. - Last Mover Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:09:29 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/microsoft-and-apple-the-history-casey-mulligan-doesnt-know#comment-17005 There's no contradiction between saying that Microsoft HAD a monopoly in the 90's, but that being hemmed in by threat of another lawsuit, plus the plucky genius of one Stephen P. Jobs, and the rapid evolution of technology, allowed it to be broken. The threat of lawsuits, not just free market forces, was an important part of the mix. (How are free market forces supposed to work when there is no free market???) Today, Microsoft's business is actively threatened by the forces unleashed since it steamrolled over Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect and others. Surveys show it with less than 50% share of the lucrative server market—certainly, well less than a monopoly. This year, more people will buy Android phones than all Microsoft-based products combined. And yes, smartphones are indeed little computers, for many people all the computer they need to check email, surf the web and socialize on Facebook—for many, they are the ONLY computers in the home. And unless current trends are surprisingly disrupted, next year Microsoft will fall to third place behind Apple in the total number of new computer platforms. Microsoft no longer has a monopoly; it has lost it by not competing aggressively enough in a field where changes come so rapidly that EVERY other firm is a potential competitor. With their “Surface” tablet announcement this week, they are trying to get back into the game, sidestepping their erstwhile partners who also took their customers, and their businesses, for granted, while ignoring the same disruptive technology that had launched them into stardom just a few years earlier. - Walt French Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:32:42 +0100