Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[David Schwartz]

Paul Rubin wrote:

> "David Schwartz" <davids at webmaster.com> writes:

>>     The appeals courts upheld that the trial court did not abuse its
>> discretion. However, both a finding of "yes, Microsoft had a
>> monopoly" and a finding of "no, Microsoft did not have a monopoly"
>> would both have been within the trial court's discretion.

> No, that finding would have been contradictory to the facts at hand.

    How would it have been contradictory to the facts at hand to find that 
OSX competes with Windows?

>> They could just as easily have found that Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, and
>> other operating systems competed with Windows.

> Nice try, but those other OS's did not have enough market share to
> prevent the finding of monopoly under the law.

    That's not what happened. With OSX, for example, the court decided that 
OSX didn't compete with Windows and therefore the market share of OSX was 
not even relevent. OSX could have sold twice as many units as Windows and 
under the court's reasoning, Microsoft would still have been a monopoly.

>>     To call it an "established legal fact" is to grossly distort the
>> circumstances under which it was determined and upheld.

> Who is paying you to post such nonsense?

    That's basically slander.

> If the trial court
> determines a fact and it's upheld on appeal, it's an established legal
> fact regardless of whether you or Microsoft likes it.

    Suppose hypothetically an issue of fact in a case is razor thin, as 
close as it can possibly be. The trial court judge says, "This is as close 
as something can possibly be. A decision of X is basically just as well 
supported as Y. Nevertheless, I will find X". (Assume the court must find X 
or Y and they are contradictory.) The appeals court says that either X or Y 
would be a reasonable finding for the trial court to make since they were 
essentially equally supported, so the decision is upheld. Does this make X 
an "established legal fact" in your mind?

    The trial court had several possible decisions about what the scope of 
the market was to be for purposes of determining what share of the market 
Microsoft had. Obviously, "software" was too large a scope and would result 
in the conclusion that Microsoft has some miniscule percentage of the 
market. "Operating systems that can run WIN32 software natively" was too 
small a scope, and would result in the conclusion that Microsoft had 
basically 100% of the market. However, the choice of the place in-between 
was critical.

    In fact, by the court's definition of the market, Apple is a monopolist 
with OSX. And what are Apple's rules for obtaining OSX wholesale?

    DS