GUI

[Peter L. Peres]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Anton Markov wrote:

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> Hi James and Phillip,
>
> I completely understand what you are saying, but I don't see how that is
> illegal.  Let's look at an example...
>
> You own a Chrysler dealership.  The business has never really picked up
...

The illegality consists in price dumping conditioned on non-competition.
The prices of M$ products vary such that they undercut the competition,
regardless of any losses they may incur. The prices are high when there is
no competition, and undercut the competition whenever there is any. Since
the products are mostly software in theory they can give them away for
free. But they don't do that. They just make them cheap enough that the
competition has no bread to eat, even if in theory this causes them to
lose money.

Worse, they condition this on non-sale of competitive products.  This
breaks the laws on allowed pricing policy in at least half the civilized
world as I know it. Worse again, after the competition folds, the prices
double or triple.  This is why price dumping is illegal. It can put a
competitor with deep pockets (or with artificially very cheap labor) in
the monopolist position within a few years, while causing countless
businesses to fold and loss of tax income from such businesses plus
unemployment that cannot be sustained (for lack of a tax base) on a
massive scale. This is especially true if the monopolist is offshore.
Sounds familiar ? Fyi in most civilized places there are solid rules about
published prices and the obligation of companies to stand by them. This
means *both* upwards *and* downwards adjustments are not allowed (within
reasonable limits) once the prices are published.

E.g.. if a license for something or other costs $100 a seat then no-one
can get it for $20 a seat behind your back. At least not on a massive
scale. Remember taxes are percentual and such 'schemes' can be considered
tax evasion attempts, besides being price dumping. The taxation shifts
from retail taxation to corporate income taxation, which saves the company
a bundle.

Several attempts to do such things can be seen with ice cream brands,
packaged food brands in supermarkets etc. They only work in places where
there are totalitarian state monopolies or 19th century-style 'free
exchange' capitalism with huge monopolists eliminating competition from
the market and fixing prices at will. Most are illegal when the price
dumping item enters the equation. Ianal.

Peter
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