It's my understanding Microsoft answered the call of IBM to provide an operating system when others declined to answer. Hence, they bundled their OS with most all new PC computers early on, thus they have achieved the success in market share we see today. It was a good business plan. The government instead of applauding them, has done to them what they did to Ma Bell (ATT) back in the 80's - break them up.

"Big Business" is not the problem. Government via K-street colluding with business is the problem. Government keeps forgetting their role is oversight - not partnership.

Microsoft answered the call in a way that made it nearly impossible for the majority of us to use any other system.

I suspect Apple, Xerox, etc. would have done it the same way if they had just known how or had the marketing acumen of Microsoft.

Xerox was just plain stupid. By failing to file timely patents, PARC essentially gave away the GUI (to Apple) and Ethernet (to former PARC employee Bob Metcalf, who went on to found 3Com).

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With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

Apple/Mac never had any kind of mentionable market share before the iPod.

Well, apart from owning the market in digital audio workstations and in digital prepress and publishing and ...

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With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

I bet you wish you had bought AAPL a <$20 a share.

I wish I bought Dell at $6 a share in '92. I can't remember how many times it has split.

I think you did. And sold it. And bought some more. And sold it again. Should have held on.

On PEG access:

http://community.freespeech.org/bad_deal

“Representatives from AT&T met with several Michigan municipal cable television managers recently to explain the technology behind their plans to include public, educational and governmental access channels in their IPTV service.

They are not currently offering any PEG channels to their test market customers in Austin, Texas, and many of the details still are
not completely worked out.”

You should go read the laundry list of how expensive it will be for local communities to provide PEG even if AT&T lets them.

Then there’s this on AT&T’s rollout:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070302-8969.html

“AT&T has run into some roadblocks with its U-Verse broadband initiative. As a result, it has slashed its forecast for the number of homes passed by the service by the end of 2007 from 18 million to 8 million. It now hopes to hit the 19 million mark by the end of 2008. The company has also announced the availability of U-Verse in the Milwaukee area, although not without some opposition from the city and some of its residents.

Had AT&T chosen to follow the same route as Verizon—laying fiber to the home, using tested CATV technology, and willingly entering into local franchise agreements—U-Verse would be facing a smoother road. Instead of following what Verizon describes as its “good neighbor” policy, AT&T is doing everything within its power to ensure that U-Verse is rolled out on its own terms. We’ll know in a couple of years how well AT&T’s strategy pays off.”

You should go read the whole article about some of the technical hurdles and how the service will be inferior.

AT&T has run into some roadblocks with its U-Verse broadband initiative.

AT&T seems to have problems whenever they try something different.

I read that AT and T had been lobbying editorial boards and it sounds like they bagged the KNS, while at first the KNS seemed against this. What bugs me is that AT and T can't just work with the cities like everybody else.

I don't want the cities being able to tell me how I can get cable services, hell the one I live in, has said that Crapcast is the only one that is allowed to have service in my area, and all they have done is raise their prices 1000 fold since they were given this privilege. What I have gotten out of it, is spotty at best cable service, tons of service calls that were previously unnecessary, on-demand movies stopping being played in the middle of watching them, and other lousy service. I demand that they pass something that allows AT&T entry into my county and over rides everything the idiots in the city did to keep me from being able to get competition in my area for the crap of service that their provider is providing me. I pay nearly $200 a month now for maybe 100 more channels, of the 140 total, I'm only interested in watching maybe 30 of those and out of those 30, over 80% of them are just the digital versions of the ones that I was paying 1/4 of that for less than 3 years ago! I'm sick and tired of local regulations and am in the group who demands that laws are at least changed so that NO company can be given "exclusivity rights" to an area, and that AT&T is allowed to come into our area and provide us with U-Verse service! I can care less about the cities making money off the deal, I can care even less than that if they don't like it that the state is taking it out of their hands, just for this reason. So what you few and far between "major" towns have access to more than one company, maybe AT&T just needs to skip your towns altogether!!! I WOULD! You don't come close to making up the majority of the states population and damn sure don't deserve the right to make the decisions for the rest of the state!