Competition Act
Russell McOrmond
russell at flora.ca
Wed Jun 17 12:36:15 UTC 2009
On Tue, 16 Jun 2009, mcr at simtone.net wrote:
> Russell can say more.
First, an echo of what MCR said..
The other problem will be Apple, given what they are doing with the tied
and locked hardware/software platforms they sell, it will be hard to
comparatively find fault with Microsoft. The bureau will do analysis of
the relevant markets to see if there is someone that can abuse a dominant
market position (IE: it isn't just what they are doing, but their
influence on the market). For portable media players Apple is as dominant
as Microsoft is for legacy desktop operating systems. Apple is a
monopolist in a growth market, while Microsoft is a monopolist in an
decreasingly relevant legacy market.
That said, I'm all for signing this type of thing and seeing what comes
from it. I don't expect much to come out of it, given by the time the
Competition Bureau would get around to bother to do anything the market
might have already solved the "Microsoft" problem and we'll be on to the
next problem. (This still may be a decade away, even with MS filing
losses and having such a hard time making money outside of their legacy
cash cows)
Watch in the next few years for the video game companies, which are
larger than both hollywood and the recording industry, to adopt the next
gen iPhone/iPod devices and see what happens to these
personal/portable/networked devices and the competition in the video game
hardware market. The bulk of societies primary tools to interact with the
communications network will be entirely locked down, with strong legal
protections of those locks. And Apple will still be able to bamboozle
their "Fanboys" into believing that Apple isn't in the one in control (IE:
like their claims about the recording and motion picture industry, Apple
will misdirect so-called "DRM" complaints to the video game companies).
Microsoft is really the old-economy problem, with Apple and
anti-circumvention (anti digital technology ownership) laws being the next
gen problem.
--
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/ http://KillBillC61.ca
"The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
manufacturers, can pry control over my camcorder, computer,
home theatre, or portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
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