Great article 250
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Well maybe you are not a twit and you just have a very poor mail reader and-or ISP. In any event this gives me a chance to repeat what is a very important point regarding the true facts surrounding Microsoft's meteoric rise to fame and fortune.
The exact message posted by Slider was:
On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 17:27:24 +0000, billwg
Microsoft *didn't* spend 25 years getting the word out with no effective resistance in the market....they used completely illegal tactics to force Windows down everyone's throat.
billwg Really? I suppose it will take a SEC investigation to be sure, but the whole Microsoft-BayStar-SCO deal reeks to high heaven, and actions by proxy are just as bad as actions by...
To which I replied:
"Oh get a clue, Liam! How on earth did Microsoft ever force anyone to buy Windows? They made some deals with the larger OEMs to give them large discounts for exclusive use of Windows by the OEM. Customers still had a choice of buying from another OEM and specifying another platform to be installed or, in most cases in that era, buying a PC with no OS at all and installing the OS of their choice, most often their old copy of Windows from their previous machine.
There is a lot of ignorance surrounding the judgements handed down in the DOJ suit. One of them is that "they used completely illegal tactics to force Windows down everyone's throat". The illegal practices, such as were found, were judged to be in support of monopoly maintenance, i.e. keeping the monopoly alive, but were explicitly ruled as being non-causual, i.e. they did not result in the creation or extension of the monopoly. "
You then come along with a lot of nonsense babble about misquoting and such, but, unless you really have lost the thread and forgot to read the parts cited in reply, all it did was make you look like a twit.