Corpania Ideas

Re: ERRORS in "U.S. v Microsoft: Who Really Won?" by Thomas Hazlett http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a94d92e0-cd99-11dc-9e4e-000077b07658.html Thomas Hazlett got some points objectively, provably wrong. 1. Hazlett wrote: "Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is coughing up market share to Mozilla, Netscape and Opera, browsers that ride comfortably on Windows." The Netscape browser went out of business. http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/ CURRENTLY: Microsoft IE has a market share of over 75% Firefox has a market share of about 15% Opera has a market share of about 1% Netscape is under 1% http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0 http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/January/browser.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Look at the chart over time and you'll notice a solid correlation between the time Microsoft was losing market share to when the DOJ was fighting it's oppressively monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. 2. Hazlett wrote: "(Apple) is crushing Microsoft in media players." But that has nothing to do with Microsoft's operating system monopoly or any of Hazlett's conclusions. "That a software giant proved helpless against competitive forces (iPod & Google) is an important lesson." That doesn't address the point of anti-trust regulations. His point is as absurd as if I wrote that Microsoft "proved helpless" against Starbucks' growth in the coffee business. Sure Microsoft was ineffectual in two businesses it didn't have monopoly power over (Media Players and Search Engines). But in operating systems it has maintained its monopoly. APPLE's market share is at its highest in years with 7.3% versus Microsoft's 91.8% dominance of the operating system market. http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/01/01/survey-mac-os-hit-record-73-share-in-december-iphone-up-33/ How can anyone support conclusions based on incorrect facts? When the public is tricked into thinking absurd conclusions based on absolutely, objectively verifiable errors how are we to feel? Is it a coincidence that the errors advance an agenda? Is it not deliberate?