[chilepepper]

Well, I'm just the reverse: I think the world of IBM, which in my view has innovated just about every important computer breakthough (have two of their laptops, used to have three), but I loath Microsoft because the stuff they sell is CRAP and IMHO stifles innovation. Besides, I have to clean up after the messes caused by their poorly designed products. I am no liberal, so you are clearly mistaken to continue the rhubarb that whoever is attacks Microsoft is somehow anti-American.

That way of thinking is exactly that which setup the mindset that allowed the Japanese cars to run General Motors into the ground.

One must never surrender values and ethics for the good of abstract economic philosophy. The big lesson I learned fron George Gilder and Milton Friedman is that the "right" path is usually the ethical path as well...

Monopoly tends to be on a different side from freedom and choice, that that is where I am against it.

[BlazingArizona]

Well, I'm just the reverse: I think the world of IBM, which in my view has innovated just about every important computer breakthough (have two of their laptops, used to have three), but I loath Microsoft because the stuff they sell is CRAP and IMHO stifles innovation. Besides, I have to clean up after the messes caused by their poorly designed products. I am no liberal, so you are clearly mistaken to continue the rhubarb that whoever is attacks Microsoft is somehow anti-American. That way of thinking is exactly that which setup the mindset that allowed the Japanese cars to run General Motors into the ground.

I'm not arguing the divinity of Micrsoft products. I'm arguing against the idea trhat Microsoft is a monopoly. I've encountered great Microsoft products, like Windows 2000. I've also seen my share of crappy Microsoft products, like Exchange, and I've always been free to buy what I like and ignore what I don't like. I'm agnostic about platforms. On my small-office network, I maintain a mix of PC's running Windows (one of them is an IBM ThinkPad), PC's running Linux and an iMac running OS X. I chose each of these systems for its unique set of advantages. So do my customers, which is why I'm frequently called on to get mixtures of machines like this cooperating in networks.

A monopoly exists when, and only when, a corporation inveigles some government into making it illegal to compete with it. An example of a successful monopoly is the healthcare industry. If Microsoft were a real monopoly, I would not have been allowed to set up the Linux PC or the Macintosh. If IBM had been a real monopoly before it, I would have been forced to rent time on a mainframe instead of being able to buy that ThinkPad.