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:

(link...)

“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:

(link...)

“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!

I want to upgrade to this pretty bad, but of course there's no fiber optic coverage in my area. It's ridiculous how these big telecommunications companies won't go into more rural areas because they won't make enough money off of it. America's brand of capitalism has reached the point of ridiculousness - I live in Evergreen, CO, and the "high speed internet providers in my area" (look at the webpage and you'll see what I mean) is like the pirates of the carribean ride at disneyland. You wait for forever and then once you're finally on you get kicked off after about 5 minutes.

R.Neal some of the things in your initial post need to be clarified. You state the cable companies pay millions in franchise fees; while that is technically true, the reality is that the consumers pay the franchise fees. Notice on your cable bill and you will see where you are assessed a franchise fee. Federal law allows the cable television companies to pass this tax along directly to the consumers. While the cable companies do indeed literally send the check for the franchise fees, they are merely passing along revenues they have collected from their customers, so it is the consumers who pay millions to the local governments for the franchise fees.

While it is true that the franchise fees can be negotiated, Federal law prohibits one company from being assessed a higher fee than any other. Considering that it is a tax on the consumer in any event, I fail to see why anyone would wish to see the franchise fees increased.

Neither Charter nor Knology compete all across Knox County or even across the entire City of Knoxville. Charter operates in the Town of Farragut and a small portion of far West Knoxville. Knology is also in West Knoxville and a small portion of the Fountain City area. The people of South Knoxville, both in the city and county, in fact have no alternative to Comcast except perhaps for Direct TV, if they can receive a signal. The representative from Knology appearing before the City Council all but stated the company would never come across the river to South Knoxville.

Former Councilman Rob Frost continually insisted that Knology had failed to live up to the terms of its agreement with the City of Knoxville with regard to build out, etc. By a 5-4 vote, with Joe Hultquist providing the deciding vote for Knology, the company was not held to the terms of its agreement with the city, so it the reality is somewhat different than what you claim. Former Councilman Frost rightly, in my opinion, claimed that Knology had engaged in "cherry-picking".

For the people of South Knoxville, as well as many other areas of the city and county, AT&T is currently the only other option available on the horizon.

My point being that even when in the hands of local government, the consumers frequently suffer as a result. Still, eliminating local control over cable companies is, in my opinion, a bad thing. It seems clear that Knology in particular was specifically waiting for passage from local control to state control with less stringent requirements.