Okay, once again, I\'ve been sucked into an argument I really don\'t care for (like the H.G. Wells one a few days ago).
Firstly, the arrogance question. How many here know who developed the EE? The usual suspects include Intel, 3Dfx, Nvidia, ATi, but it wasn\'t any of these, it was Toshiba (with help from Sony and IBM). Strange but true.
I, and many others, wouldn\'t pick Toshiba and Sony to design high-end chips (both are competent chip makers, but not amoung the elite)--IBM yes--but Sony decided to give the lead to Toshiba. You don\'t see Nintendo or MS helping their chip makers.
Anyway, Sony could have went with trusted archetecture, known designs and proven quality, but they went with Tosh\'s EE. An virtual unknown and a radical chip design. This infuriated developers, but Sony didn\'t care. Where else would they go? The N64 or DC? Sony knew they could do whatever they wanted and devs would come, they\'d have to.
It wasn\'t the performance of the chip or the specs, it was the idea of it, the pure confounding nature of it that attracted Sony. If Sony would have went to press with a Nvidia chip and said "This is the Emotion Engine, it can create vast, detailed, populated worlds where each individual has his/her own unique emotions and desires!" People would have pointed and laughed and said, it\'s a Nvidia chip, not unlike the one I have on my desktop, sure it\'s more powerful, but it\'s not all that hype.
With Tosh\'s design, people took so long to figure it out, that there was no time for a dissenting viewpoint because the hype machine was in full swing and everyone was obsessed with Sony. If they wanted to please developers and customers they would have went with known archetecture and not alienated their developers. It wouldn\'t have taken almost 2 years for the machine\'s potencial to be realized. But Sony didn\'t care because they knew the devs and the public would come because where else would they go? This is arrogance (and burgeoning on monopoly).
Now about the whole monopoly thing. People are free to choose, competition isn\'t impossible, Sony isn\'t a monopoly.
DISCLAIMER: I am no expert on economics, anone who is feel free to correct me.
Why is it that business and economics majors always, at some point, study MS? Why is it that most introductory B&E courses start with MS? Because they are a smart company that has made wise decisions and conducted business in a way that makes complete (business) sense. MS is not unlike Time Warner, Viacom, United Airlines or Central Pacific (well CP was a coercive monopoly, aided by government sanctions, so they\'re not the same type of monopoly as the others).
When Viacom absorbed CBS (making it the biggest in the industry), no one said a word. When MS bought Bungie--everyone cried bloody foul, forgetting the fact that Bungie approached MS to be bought. Forgot about that didn\'t you?
We live in a capitalistic society and MS (exactly like the companies above) is only playing by the rules of our society. The market will regulate itself. Netscape was out first and was offered free to anyone. IE was introduced later and was also free, but was vastly inferior. Then NS started to charge $20 bucks for the browser and an email client. MS bundled IE with Windows, then improved IE. NS started to lose its mindshare and quickly dropped its price to zero, and filed a lawsuit stating that MS was using unfair pricing tactics. It seems to me that NS tried to exploit its marketshare by charging $20, and MS released a superior product, charged nothing and won marketshare. The market chose the best deal for them. The OS market is no different. Apple was out first, MS though they had a good idea, tailored it, improved it and offered a deal to OEMs to distrubute their OS. OEMs looked at the prices on the market and went with MS.
Seems like good business to me. A capitalistic society allows anyone the freedom to make as much money as he/she can and price whatever, he/she wants. Linex is out there, it\'s basically free, but it\'s not generating a market share outside of server admins. Why? Probably marketing and MS\'s mindshare. Why is Sony selling 30 million PS2s? Probably marketing and mindshare.
MS is not unlike IBM years ago. MS can be toppled, but it\'ll take a keen company and some luck--it took Intel and MS to dethrone IBM.
If you take business or economics courses, you will hear about Central Pacific, a coercive monopoly that allowed for no competition. You\'ll also learn that MS, Time Warner and Disney aren\'t coercive or in the same category as CP. CP was not built on smart business practises, sound decisions and free economy--they were built on a mixed economy model. They had legislative leverage, that being government aid in terms of legislations/sanctions, that allowed for absolutely no competition.
MS can be beaten--Sun and Oracle proove that (and NS too until they changed tactics)--and MS doesn\'t stop competition, actually Apple and Corel wouldn\'t even be around if not for MS financial aid. The problem is that most people think immediately that monopolies are evil--coercive monopolies are--but standard monopolies like Time Warner, Viacom and MS are merely examples of the economic market working well, by smart people.
All this antitrust and monopoly started with "The Wealth of Nations" published some 200 years ago. And if you read that book you\'ll realize that today, the term monopoly, is a misnomer. coined the term monopoly to mean a business running with government assistence and exclusivity (CP). Today, it\'s any successful company, usually MS.
Legislators often quote this guy (damn I wish I could remember his name!) in support of anti-trust laws, but he was very much against them. Infact, if not for politicians, who have no clue about anything let alone economics, the anti-trust laws would be long gone. As it is, anti-trust laws are open to interpretation, so much so that, almost any successful company can be accused of anti-trust violations. Everyone agrees, that ammendments are needed, even those strongly in support of anti-trust legislation. As it is now, successful, smart and rich comapnies are being rallied again because of these very qualities under the flag of anti-trust. This is not what anti-trust is about, not when it was concieved years ago. It\'s only become this recently.
Whew! So is MS a monopoly? Yes, but under the rules of a capitalist society, MS is playing fairly. The only hitch people have is that they play the game much better than anyone else right now. Another OS can come out, people can shose to buy it if they want and MS can do nothing about it. Hell, Linux is free!
Is Sony a monopoly in the console world? In a word, no, but it\'s not far off.
