--On November 16, 2005 9:25:29 PM -0800 David Barak <thegameiam@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Owen DeLong <owen@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 $299
Just because I didn't quote the emails from my history, does not mean these are not accurate. These are the list prices quoted by vendors of M$ products over the years in my mail history file. It's not an assertion, it's actual data. True, they are not the "street" or "discounted" prices, but, they are the MSRP.
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.
Without getting into the argument about which version of Windows is or is not an improvement, it's certainly the most expensive OS in the market today: MacOS X: $99 (List) -- Includes HTTP, DNS, DHCP servers and other basic essentials like SMTP and LDAP servers, etc. http://www.apple.com Windows XP Pro $299 (List) -- Includes HTTP (sort of), but, no ability to be DNS, DHCP, SMTP, or, LDAP server without additional software. http://www.microsoft.com (pricing link) Solaris x86 $49.95 (CD) -- $9.95 DVD, $0 download http://www.sun.com (downloads->get solaris 10) Full Server or desktop Version Red Hat Enterprise Linux Basic $179 -- Includes all Server software, but, missing some GUIs for managing, limited support. http://www.redhat.com/en_us/USA/rhel/compare/client Fedora Core $0 -- Full server/desktop version http://fedora.redhat.com FreeBSD $0 -- Full server/desktop version http://www.freebsd.org So... Microsoft has a monopoly on Windows and the basic OS costs you $299 with virtually no server capabilities. In the POSIX-style OS world, where you have multiple competitors, prices range from $0 to $179. Next?
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.
True, but, this one does. There are multiple ways to skin a cat, and, multiple versions of Windows pricing. Any way you slice it, MicroSoft remains the most expensive OS in the market. Everyone elses OS prices have come down since the days of Win 3.1, Microsoft's have gone up (about 600% -- $49 to $299).
Finally, the price of the client software is actually not the primary problem with M$ 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.
Microsoft has a monopoly on Active Directory servers. Microsoft has a monopoly on Exchange servers. If you are unfortunate enough to need either of these things (I thank my lucky stars every day that I am not), you have to buy them from Micr0$0ft.
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.
I think that the anti-competitive behavior of SBC and that of SOCA are, indeed, very similar. If you prefer a more similar example, we can compare Comcast and SBC, or, perhaps you would prefer to compare Pacific Bell and US West (prior to them all becoming part of SBC). Pick your poison, there's certainly a record of anti-competitive practices available.
"History doesn't repeat itself. Historians do." -unknown (to me at least)
Unknown and untrue... History is replete with examples of history repeating itself. In many ways, WWI and WWII are examples of history repeating itself. Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq are examples. Sure, slightly different results, but, if you roll dice more than a couple of times, you usually get different numbers, too. Many Many Many similarities in costs, casualties, efficacy, etc. If you want closer examples: US Involvement in Viet Nam vs. Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. VERY similar results all the way around.
Don't fight the last war, and especially don't fight it in a way which will impede future innovation.
Agreed. Instead of granting further monopoly positions and first-arrival advantages and again allowing the first provider into the market to prevent all future comers, let's avoid the fight and separate the LMI from the overlying service.
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?"
That's certainly a viable option, however, like you, I think that we should preserve as much as possible of the competitive landscape. I don't want to pick "IP" as the winner for everyone. I think IP is the winner, and, I think it will continue to be the winner for some time. Moving that far up the stack means you are dictating a lot more of the solution and removing a lot more opportunities for innovation. If you limit it to the scope I speak of, you are limited to an area where very little innovation has occurred in the last 50 years, or, is likely to occur in the next 50. Category 3 UTP hasn't changed in more than 50 years. Fiberoptics date back to the 1840s with singlemode being introduced in 1961 and adapted for telecommunications in 1966 and it's current form being perfected around 1970. 75 ohm TV Co-Ax has also been pretty standard for a very long time (RG58 is, I believe, the most common) Given universal household access to singlemode, UTP3, and RG58, I don't believe there is a single terrestrial facilities based communications service available today that would be impossible (obviously, the current cost of DWDM hardware and supporting backbone equipment makes OC-192 to the home impractical today, but, not impossible given the facilities above). I cannot deny that there is a possibility someone will come up with some super-innovative media for terrestrial facilities-based transmission, but, I can say that there is very little effort being put into such research at this time because single-mode fiber is so economical at this point that nobody really feels there is a need for or significant benefit to such an improvement. Were a compelling new media to come along, I'm sure that someone would deploy it. Bottom line, we have achieved market competition and fair access to all other portions of the network. LMI at layer 1 has proven to be the sticky wicket that remains a natural monopoly no matter how hard we try to change that. As such, I think it is time to accept the fact and deal with it accordingly, instead of continuing to allow it to preserve destructive monopolies in other areas. Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery.