[AccessD] OT: Microsoft threatens its Most Valuable Professional

Few capitalists would define true competition as 'giant company A suing 
minuscule company B out of existence'. In a free market sense, this is 
anti-competitive, because it denies the market the chance to make its 
unencumbered choice on the merits of the products.

OK, so giant company A says minuscule company B stole its cookies. But, 
company A _gave_ company B the cookies, in A's free box of goodies, 
albeit in a cookie jar with a clear plastic seal on top that said 'do 
not eat'. Company A can get its feelings hurt, but had they removed the 
cookies from the goody box in the first place, they wouldn't be in this 
position.

Can company B successfully use its free cookies to make a deluxe goody 
basket that it can charge money for, and supplant company A's own 
super-deluxe, expensive basket? That depends on the value proposition of 
the products. If company A really packed a lot of good, quality stuff in 
its super-deluxe basket, then what B would have to charge to duplicate 
it, even with its 'unfair advantage', should equal or exceed the price 
for A's product. But if A is using its market dominance to charge an 
inflated price for its basket, then B should be able to deliver similar 
value for less. B still has the burden of proving its product really has 
value.

As customers, we should always demand competition in this situation, 
barring some unnatural affection for one side or the other. That is in 
*our* best self-interest.

(Michael Maddison)
 > Hardly an example of big bad MS though.
That example would be MS blacklisting Richard Grimes for rightly 
pointing out that the emperor has no clothes in his article (first 
pointed out by Shamil):
"Welcome to the 4% Operating System"
http://www.grimes.demon.co.uk/dotnet/vistaAndDotnet.htm

-Ken