What do we mean when we say "competition?"

Thu Nov 17 05:25:29 UTC 2005

--- Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> 
> > Windows 98 price (in 1997) -> $209
> > Office 97 Standard (in 1997) -> $689 
> > Windows XP price (now) -> $199.
> > Office 2003 (now) -> $399.
> > 
> > Want to try that again?
> > 
> Yes... Here's some more accurate data:
> 
> Windows 3.1 price $49
> Windows 3.1.1 price $99
> Windows 95 (Personal) price $59
> Windows 98 (Personal) price $99
> Windows ME (Home) price $99
> Windows NT WS price $99
> Windows 2000 Pro price $299
> Windows XP Pro Price $399
> 
> If you're going to use list prices, use list prices
> all the way through.
> The above represent, to the best of my knowledge, M$
> retail pricing for
> the lowest level of their "client" version of their
> OS available at
> the time.

You're mistaken.
http://www.theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_w98.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/product.aspx?view=22&pcid=a9d2c448-eb05-4a2b-a062-9c711c533e0c&type=ovr
http://www.theosfiles.com/os_windows/ospg_wxp_pro.htm

So it goes from 209 to either 199 or 299 depending on
whether you want "home" or "pro."  That's hardly an
egregious markup for a better OS, several years later.

> 
> I confess I haven't followed pricing on M$ Office,
> but, I'm willing to
> bet that an apples-to-apples comparison would reveal
> similar results.

http://www.computerwriter.com/archives/1997/cw230197.htm#prices
http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/howtobuy/compare.mspx

I was doing a similar apples-to-apples comparison. 
Look, just accept that not all data points will line
up with your assertions - find some others instead. 
If there are so many, then there have to be better
examples than these.

> Finally, the price of the client software is
> actually not the primary
> problem with M$ monopolistic pricing.  It is the
> back-end software
> where they really are raising the prices.  Compare
> NT Server to
> 2K or XP Server or Advanced Server.  XP AS is nearly
> double 2000 AS
> last time I looked.

Microsoft hardly has a monopoly on servers.  If their
prices are too high, use something else.

> > The argument regarding ILECs is reversed.  I
> > appreciate the citation of Standard Oil, but it is
> a
> > fallacy to think that there is a one-to-one
> mapping
> > between SO and any/all of the ILECs.  
> > 
> True.  What is the point?

Standard Oil is a strawman argument.  The ILECs are
dissimilar in nature and behavior from Standard Oil. 
An assertion otherwise requires evidence.

> 
> > Assertions that "monopolies do X and they're bad,
> and
> > we know that Y will eventually do bad because
> they're
> > a monopoly" are circular.
> > 
> Statements like "In the past, monopolies have done
> X, and, the
> results of X are bad.  Since Y is a monopoly, we can
> expect them to do
> X as well, with similar negative results." are not
> circular.  They
> are attempting to learn from history rather than
> repeat it.

"History doesn't repeat itself.  Historians do."
-unknown (to me at least)

Don't fight the last war, and especially don't fight
it in a way which will impede future innovation.

> Since the market is risky to deploy LMI once, you
> will have a hard
> time that the market exists to pay for multiple
> copies of a given
> LMI in order to support competition.

If there's money in it, then someone will fill the
need.  

I still haven't seen the justification for treating
layer-1 last mile differently from layer-2 last-mile,
or for that matter layer-3 last mile.  Why shouldn't
the city just say "everyone hop on our citywide IP
network, and then everyone can compete at higher
layers of the stack?"

David Barak
Need Geek Rock?  Try The Franchise: 
http://www.listentothefranchise.com

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