Christopher Barker

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since May 23, 2001

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May 23, 2001, on Why Bill Gates is Richer than You:
One of the biggest issues that is often ignored when discussing the question of the Microsoft Monopoly is the question of where MS's market dominance is really important. The justice department successfully (it is now under appeal of course) sued MS over the issue of adding IE to windows, but that particular issue was chosen because MS's behavior violated a consent decree from an earlier legal action. It is not necessarily the largest issue for consumers. Personally, I've always thought it was ridiculous to argue about what is or is not part of the OS. Working with Linux has demonstrated to me that the graphics system can be a separate program, as can file managers, and any number of utilities. Remember when the extended memory manager (for DOS and Windows 3.1 and earlier?) was a separate program? Basically, it is an argument that no one can win. Where is MS's market dominance really creating a barrier to entry? Office applications. Most people that use a PC need to use (or think...