Word: jacksonism
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...Microsoft with monopolistic foul play. The thematic centerpiece of their suit--with multiple spin-off charges--was that Microsoft leveraged its power in the operating systems market to aggressively increase the market share of its browser, Internet Explorer. Round One opened in District Court, the honorable Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson presiding. It closed to the brazen bell of his finding of fact on Halloween. The date was eerily appropriate for the 207-page rant for several reasons--ghoulish economics, the monstrous presumptuousness of a philosopher king and a downright creepy disregard...
...little longer. When Windows 3.0 first came out in April 1990, a copy went for $205. The initial price of Windows 98, on the other hand, was only $169. Lowering cost to the consumer, it seems, just doesn't correlate with market virtue anymore. Although, in all fairness to Jackson, we are talking about only an 18 percent reduction...
...effectively eliminated Netscape as a platform threat." But the charge holds up only in virtual reality, at best. Netscape still enjoys a comfortable 42 percent of the browser market and that figure will increase to a snugly hegemonic 58 percent after its acquisition by AOL is complete. Then again, Jackson's understanding of the word "eliminate" could just be more rich and nuanced than Webster...
Well, what about bundling Explorer with Windows in a blatant attempt to leverage operating system power over into the browser market? According to an appeals court, which in 1998 overturned Jackson's own injunction against the bundle, Microsoft's tying "combines functionalities ... in a way that offers advantages unavailable if ... [the products are] bought separately and combined by the purchaser." The appeals court is higher up on the judicial food chain than Jackson's district court and it did have three judges examine the issue, as opposed to only one. But that was last year. His egregiously embarrassing computer literacy...
More than anywhere else, Jackson's Manichaean analysis crashes in its appraisal of entry barriers in the operating systems market. They are not nearly as high as he believes. Given the lightning speed with which information technology today is generating novelty, recent developments threaten not just to lower purported barriers but shatter them entirely. Java, a universal language being developed by Sun, should drastically decrease dependence on Windows. Internet servers that allow surfers to bypass Windows are also on the rise. As one venture capitalist at Accel Partners puts it, "in the past six months, we have not seen...