bundling thoughts

[Sean]

Paul, i dont think I could have said it much better. Except I would have
added, there is also a lot of money thrown around for bundling. M$ pays
Apple to bundle IE and have it be the default browser. I am sure Kodak
chunked out something for it. It is basically boils down to a M$ PR stunt.



On Tue, 14 Aug 2001 Paul_Melson@keykertusa.com wrote:

> >First of all I agree that Microsoft is violating laws by bundling its
> software
> >products with its operating system. It builds an anti-competitive
> advantage for
> >them. The only way this should be allowed is if competitors are as well
> allowed
> >to deliver their products pre-installed or even pre-delivered (on the MS
> >install CD).
> >
> >Overall I think this is not manageable and MS should not be allowed to
> bundle
> >anything but just sell their cut down OS and deliver any additional
> software on
> >extra CD to be installed by the user.
>
> Allow me to play devil's advocate here, for a moment.  Other than some
> embedded OS's, "bundling" is a standard practice, especially among Linux
> distributions.  The idea that you would have to individually download and
> install (or, applying this to commercial software, purchase) each utility
> and application individually in order to make your system usable, let
> alone robust, is unappetizing at best.  Why should Microsoft be forced to
> do something that no other software vendor, commercial or otherwise, is
> required to do?  If the playing field is evened by stripping OS's of their
> value-add software, the results will be absurd.  Imagine having to place
> an order for your AIX or Solaris image updates and individually order each
> of the daemons you want to run.
>
>
> >Here is why. Now Kodak is powerful and has the ability to force Microsoft
> to
> >the above concession. And now AOL and Real want in on the deal. Then it
> is
> >Norton and then McAfee and then god knows whatever company. And who do
> you see
> >left out? FSF.
>
> >From a strictly profiteering standpoint, can you add value to (or at least
> charge more for) a product suite that includes software that is otherwise
> freely available?  Probably not.
>
>
> That said, I'm as tired of paying lots of money for inferior products just
> because they are part of this undocumented global "standard" as I am of
> seeing BSODs and having to buy twice the hardware for half the work that
> another platform could do.  Let's hope for large-scale backlash.
>
> PaulM
>
> _______________________________________________
> linux-user mailing list
> linux-user@egr.msu.edu
> http://www.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user
>