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it's very hipocritical to say "bah, law makers don't know squat about computers" when criticizing the RIAA and MPAA, and then say "don't you think the evidence showed in court proves it".
I don't see where I said this. Also, legislators have very little to do with what goes on in the courtrooms that attempt to interpret their laws.
*Everyone* I know right now switched over and is still using IE over Netscape for the exact same reason.
This is silly. I know people who use Mozilla and/or Opera exclusively as well as alongside IE. I also know people who use IE and refuse to even consider "alternative" browsers. It's a personal choice. It also doesn't change the fact one bit that Microsoft used their desktop monopoly as a lever to acquire a browser monopoly. Very few people even know that other browsers exist, or even what a browser is. ("The internet? That's the blue E on my desktop!")
Netscape did the typical geek idealist thing of hoping that 'you build it they will come'. Where as Moft sought alliance with other companies...
Microsoft bought Spyglass Software and integrated their browser into Windows. I don't see how that was an alliance, more than it was assimilation. Microsoft also refused to allow OEMs to install Netscape on the machines they built. If you can't even buy a computer with Netscape on it if you wanted to, but you get IE by default with the operating system, Netscape loses by default. What would be the chances of ANY company in that situation? Microsoft stacked the deck in their favor before it begun. Before you whine about capitalism this, capitalism that, note that attempting to expand a monopoly across product categories is ILLEGAL. If you believe that Microsoft should be above the law, then this discussion is pointless.
IBM's incompetence cannot be blamed on others, that's the bottom line.
You admit that Microsoft *should* have played fairly and not backstabbed them over OS/2, but do not criticize them for not doing so. If you're for dirty pool, say so. Otherwise, I don't see why Microsoft would be exempt from criticism.
Linux (w/ Redhat for example) entered on the same market that BeOS did.
Red Hat is giving away their product to end users, and targeting enterprises for volume sales where they can provide support contracts. BeOS was a desktop OS directly competing with desktop versions of Windows. Or at least, it would have competed with Windows; Microsoft's discriminatory OEM licensing never even allowed it the chance to compete on whatever technical merits it had, as no OEMs were allowed to even install it on machines they shipped. (Be eventually offered to give away the OS just to get OEM preinstall marketshare, but found that OEMs were unwilling to risk a breach of contract with Microsoft, even for a giveaway.) If you don't see a problem with a situation where third parties can't enter a market without completely giving away their product, then I don't know what to say. This is exactly the situation that antitrust law was meant to avoid.
all three of those companies were big and strong. They only fell so much harder.
IBM hasn't fallen. Netscape and Be, I don't see how you can even insinuate that they were ever "big and strong".
If anything, Microsoft raped small companies... *royally*. Not big ones.
Yep, and that's the problem. So why should we absolve them just because they've only hurt small companies and not taken down mega-goliaths? After all, their barriers to entry were designed to keep new competition from rising up and taking over market share. That's how an abusive monopoly works. They don't care what IBM does, because they can't control IBM; but they can put a startup out of business overnight.
Get your priorities straight... we're not talking about your neighbour's kid here that got hurt
My priorities are that I want a fair and free marketplace and choice for consumers. If you disagree with those priorities, there is no more argument here.
Win32 being similar to OS/2 is as irrelevant as Linux being similar to UNIX in this conversation.
Is that so? Where did the Linux developers have access to the source code of any proprietary UNIX operating system under a co-development agreement, and then take that code, change it slightly to be incompatible with UNIX, and sell it as their own proprietary product?

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