Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:29595 comp.windows.ms:426 comp.sys.ibm.pc:27080
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!mirror!garison
From: garison@mirror.UUCP (Gary Piatt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.ms,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Apple gets favorable ruling
Keywords: Apple vs. Microsoft
Message-ID: <25056@mirror.UUCP>
Date: 5 Apr 89 19:11:40 GMT
References: <6271@bsu-cs.UUCP> <1068@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <2574@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Reply-To: garison@prism.TMC.COM (Gary Piatt)
Organization: Very little
Lines: 31

In article <2574@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> Jeffrey A. Sullivan writes:
=>                                                                  Try
=>to put it in your perspective:  You develop a whiz-bang new piece of
=>software that everybody -- but EVERYBODY -- wants to run (e.g., an
=>OS), and start making millions on it.  But all of the sudden, all of
=>your competitors bring up amazingly similar OSes and your profits
=>decline dramatically.  Wouldn't you seriously think about suing?

Frankly, no.  If I had already made millions of dollars on my software,
I would assume that the development costs had been covered and that 
anything that I made over production costs (diskettes, shipping) was
clear profit.  I would drop my retail price to cover production and
a small profit margin, knowing that my competitors could not match or
beat the price and still cover their (still outstanding) development
costs.  The competition would go down in flames and I would once again
be the only producer of said software.

Apple is suing Microsoft solely for the public attention (in my own
opinion).  Consider this:  Apple makes Macintoshes, Mac II's, etc;
MS-Windows was written for PC's.  Where's the competition?  Apple is
not losing any business to Microsoft.  In fact, it could be argued that
Apple gets free advertising evertime someone uses Windows; sooner or
later, a Windows user could be expected to purchase a Mac... going to
the horse's, uh, mouth, as it were.

			-Garison-


Disclaimer:
   The opinions stated above are of my own creation, and, therefore,
   are probably wrong.