One reader gives his thoughts on the big tech monopolies (and his hatred for the N.Y. Jets):
Apparently you are cursed with a brain that doesn't know how to think very well. Or more to the point, you probably praise the creativity of the N.Y. Jets coach who came up with that genius plan to try to cripple opposing players by tripping them. Somewhere in the NFL rules it says you cannot have 20 active players on one side but the NY Jets, lousy stinking cheaters that they are, thought up a way to ignore that rule. I think the entire team should be suspended for a year at least.
Microsoft had to grow up and act like an adult when it was declared a monopoly. Never-mind the fact that there is more competition in the OS space than there ever was. And how about the competition in the Internet browser space that seems to give birth to a new browser every other month?
Microsoft became a "monopoly" because it did a better job of understanding what software folks wanted to put on their computers than did IBM -- another firm who previously was declared by the U.S. government to be a monopoly. Microsoft beat out IBM because it did a better job of understanding the paradigm shift underway at the time than did IBM which, with its PS/2 actually tried to monopolize the PC market via proprietary hardware and software. IBM had a "natural" monopoly (MVS) in the terms of economists, and Microsoft developed another "natural" monopoly (Windows).
Now Google is doing to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM.
If you are a poor sport cheating SOB like the N.Y. Jets are then perhaps your brain logic can come up with the notion that Google should not be told to play fair but if you understand anything about the law... and history... you would understand that Google is playing in the same sandbox as IBM and Microsoft... and Oracle. Power corrupts and infinite power corrupts infinitely. Google is the new Evil and they need to grow up as well.
Microsoft executives have a fiduciary obligation to their stock owners to insist that everyone play fair. Whether it is the NFL or the U.S. government, those who set the rules have an obligation to enforce the rules. There is absolutely nothing "odd" about insisting that your opponents play fair. What is "odd" is the way you think.
-Eric