Bill Gates MoneyReader comment on: Sowell on 'Enough Money' Submitted by J.Johnson (United States), May 18, 2010 13:37 Much of Gates' fortune arose from the practice of monopolistic activities at Microsoft. When Microsoft saw a good idea that was not theirs, they either : (a) bought it and, sometimes, if it did not conflict with the profitibality of an existing Microsoft product, brought it to market; or (b) crushed it by, among other things, making it incompatible with Microsoft software or threatening hardware vendors (think: Dell) that they would lose Windows if they put a competitor on the desktop; or (c) stole it and hoped they would not get caught, knowing that even if they got caught (which happened a number times), the effect on their bottom line of a fine was much less than the effect of losing customers to a competitor As someone who has both built and programmed computers from the days when they used punched cards and filled big rooms, I firmly believe that no person has done more to retard the advancement of personal computer software more than Bill Gates and Microsoft. I realize that there are arguments, some of them good, against antitrust regulations, but, at least in the world of personal computer software, it was a sad day indeed when, as one of its very first acts, the Bush Department of Justice dropped the Microsoft antitrust litigation. Anybody who saw/read Bill Gates testimony could quickly and easily come to the conclusion that he knew the case against him was very strong and one of the few, possibly only, things that could save him and Microsoft was a Justice Department full of ignorant legal antiques who, like Bush, were still as dumb as dishwater when it came to the Internets. Note: Comments are moderated by the editor and are subject to editing. Other reader comments on this item
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