Re: Why Corporate America uses PC's and not Mac

On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 16:52:11 -0800, High Plains Thumper wrote
(in article <4b19aebe$0$9750$6e1ede2f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

Fa-groon wrote:
Dark wrote:

1. Macs don't have as much software as PC do

So the world needs 250 Word processors? Never mind that the corporate
world has standardized on one, MS Word, which is also available for
the Mac. For some reason, "Dark" thinks that 250 word processors are
a reason why corporate America uses PCs and not Macs. - no points

I liked ClarisWorks in the late 1990's. It was a decent word processing
software, different and better than Microsoft Word.

One doesn't need a proliferation of office suites, if one works well.

I don't consider Microsoft Word the epitome of word processors.
Wordperfect 6.0a of the mid 1990's was a vastly superior office suite to
Microsoft. In many ways it still is a better product.

It was the convicted monopoly maintainer that basically monopolised the
office suite arena with its anticompetitive practises.

[quote]
II. MICROSOFT?S HISTORY OF ANTICOMPETITIVE CONDUCT

This section reviews a number of Microsoft?s past actions to extinguish
potential competitive threats. These include Microsoft?s: [...] (e)
elimination of Word Perfect; [...] While not comprehensive, these
examples of Microsoft?s past misconduct provide a clear illustration of
the types of acts that Microsoft has taken to protect and extend its
monopolies. [...]

E. Microsoft?s Elimination Of Word Perfect

?If we own the key ?franchises? built on top of the operating
system, we dramatically widen the ?moat? that protects the operating
system business?. We hope to make a lot of money off these franchises,
but even more important is that they should protect our Windows royalty
per PC.?
?Jeff Raikes, Microsoft President [43]

?I have decided that we should not publish these [Windows 95 user
interface] extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high
level of integration that will be harder for likes of Notes, WordPerfect
to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage.... We can't
compete with Lotus and WordPerfect/Novell without this.?
?Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and then-CEO [44]

Beginning in 1994, Microsoft launched an anticompetitive campaign
to extinguish WordPerfect, an office productivity application owned by
Novell and competing with Microsoft?s Office suite. Office productivity
applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation
applications) are one of the most important groups of applications and
contribute substantially to the applications barrier to entry protecting
Microsoft?s operating system monopoly.

When Microsoft began this campaign, WordPerfect enjoyed widespread
popularity. In order to eliminate its competitor, Microsoft withheld
crucial technical information about Windows, going so far as to extend
the Windows API, the set of commands a program uses to communicate with
the operating system, to ensure that WordPerfect did not work smoothly
with Microsoft?s monopoly operating system. [45]

Microsoft also used its monopoly power to control industry standards,
thus requiring WordPerfect to implement proprietary technology or risk
incompatibility with Windows. [46]

And it excluded WordPerfect from the major channels of distribution for
office productivity applications. [47]

For example, Microsoft forbade OEMs from pre-installing Novell products
and gave discounts for refusing to sell other developers? office
productivity applications. [48]

As part of Microsoft?s strategy to eliminate Novell, ?[a] top Microsoft
executive wrote that Microsoft should ?smile? at Novell, falsely
signifying Microsoft?s willingness to help the two companies? common
customers integrate their various products, while actually ?pulling the
trigger? and killing Novell.? [49]

Microsoft?s tactics were, again, extremely successful, as shown in the
graphic below. [50]

Microsoft extinguished WordPerfect and gained a monopoly in office
productivity application suites, accomplishing its goal of ?dramatically
widen[ing] the moat? protecting its lucrative Windows monopoly.
[/quote]

See article for footnotes [ ], which have links for further reading.

http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf



Well, yeah, but what does this have to do with my statement that the
corporate world (THE subject here, remember?) has standardized on MS Word (MS
Office)? It obviously has nothing to do with Word's attributes as a word
processor. The WP vendors challenged the corporate world to "Pick one" and
they did. MS Word.

.

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