Now I see why companies mentioned in hover text have minor problems in Europe: Fac€book, Googl€, Appl€...
¥ahoo! Japan on the other hand does fine in Japan.
Today's XKCD: Microsoft
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#32Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what the best data source is, but http://jeremyreimer.com/postman/node/329 puts it up around 98% in the late 90s-mid 00s.
If I didn't overlook something it only states something about hardware market shares. Which are much easier to measure than software market share. (Although even in the hw market shares there might be a significant uncertainty due to DYI built computers which were quite common during the 90s.)
By the mid to late 90s, I don't think DIY computers would have made much of a dent compared to prebuilt computers, especially since most of them would have ended up running Windows.
I wasn't able to find web usage stats that are very old. http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/os_marketshar... is the oldest usage-based data I could find, which puts Windows up at around 97% in 2005. I can't imagine it was much lower in the late 90s, given that Macs of that era were pretty shitty and even less people used Linux back then.
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#34This is silly. Microsoft was a monopoly with 98% of the OS market who was trying to use that monopoly to force their competitors out of business. Remind me again, what company am I supposed to believe is doing that today? Near 100% market share and uncompetitive practices? This comic seems like the opposite of http://xkcd.com/774/ - it's trendy to ignore the abuses of Microsoft in the 90s, or to paint some false equi…
98%? Even if you assume this only counts desktop OSs, I think that is an exaggeration...
If you look at productive (business) desktop computer purchasing, 98% would seem a reasonable figure.
If I recall correctly, Apple's market share of computer sales were as low as 3% in the 1990s, and that included sales to homes and education.
I'm not sure when Linux gained traction in the server market, but I doubt it was significant prior to 2000.
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a local monopoly on their hardware. It's like cable companies: there may be several of them in a country but if there's only one in each city, they have a local monopoly that they can abuse.
Your individual hardware is not like a city. Poor analogy. This is like saying that your microwave manufacturer has a monopoly on your microwave. Just buy another microwave.
I installed Linux on my microwave.
Just kidding. I wish I could though.
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#36Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#37As far as I understand, the problem with MS was that they tried and used their strength in the OS market to gain an advantage in the browser market. What similar cross-market unfair competition are Facebook, Google and Apple blamed for?
Wasn't Google accused of forcing Motorola/Verizon to dump SkyHook in favor of their own solution by holding Android hostage? I am not sure what the result was but it seems one could say that's anti-competitive behavior (if the accusations are true) but it probably didn't matter because they didn't have a monopoly at the time.
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
"[...] their strength in the X market to gain an advantage in the Y market." Isn't that pretty much Google's business plan?
Except Google doesn't have any monopolies, so it's legal.
Maybe, but that goes to show the definition of monopoly is hazy at the best of times.
Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#39Re: Today's XKCD: Microsoft
#40This is silly. Microsoft was a monopoly with 98% of the OS market who was trying to use that monopoly to force their competitors out of business. Remind me again, what company am I supposed to believe is doing that today? Near 100% market share and uncompetitive practices? This comic seems like the opposite of http://xkcd.com/774/ - it's trendy to ignore the abuses of Microsoft in the 90s, or to paint some false equi…
This reaction seems a bit too simplistic for me. Assuming that market share + competitive-niceties is the only issue to be evaluated for fairness within capitalism is a rather short-sighted view in the current technology world.
In the 90s (relative to now), Microsoft's scenario involved very specific and identifiable things on which to evaluate the market from an anti-trust point of view. It wasn't just things like 98% of the OS market or browser bundling; these were very concrete things that any person could look at and visibly see. In a fast-growing market without a lot of players, it was easy to see that MSFT was largely the only game in town.
Nowadays it is much more complex. Who cares about OS installations anymore (besides MS Windows division?) Back in the 90s, categories such as search weren't yet a critical part of the mainstream. What about personal data (social networks) or advertising (display/text)? Consider a more granular scenario: when Twitter or Facebook makes an API policy change that forces third-parties who have built upon their API into wholesale business changes, is that anti-competitive? The "low switching costs" that service providers mention isn't quite so cut-and-dried.
It seems to me we could use some evolved thinking on the subject. Continuing to apply the simple metrics used with the MSFT anti-trust evaluation feels outdated.