Group of Cities, Counties Sues Microsoft

[Nambe]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)

A group of California cities and counties on Friday filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp.(MSFT), saying that the world's largest software maker overcharged government agencies for software.

The suit, which claimed that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft violated state antitrust and unfair competition laws, was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on behalf of other California cities and government entities, said Dennis Herrera, city attorney for the City and County of San Francisco.

The complaint represents government consumers who bought Windows operating system software or Windows Word and Excel spreadsheet software after Feb. 18, 1995, and seeks an unspecified amount of damages. ..
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[physioex]

1. Instead of using crappy MS products..

Why don't they do the smart thing and switch to Linux and Openoffice? Many places in Europe already have...

[Voltaire99]

2. Exactly. OpenOffice is very good...

...as a substitute for Microsoft Word. And, of course, it's free. :-)

Beat your Microsoft habit here:

www.openoffice.org

[Barkley]

4. A: Economics of QWERTY

Its the same reason no one's bothered to seriously challenge the Universal Keyboard.

There's a 'lock-in' effect in which people are comfortable with the products they are currently using. Consumers and businesses alike hate the frustration and delay that learning how to use new systems entails. This "lock-in effect" helps MS preserve market dominance.

There's also a relatively new phenomenon known as 'network effect' the notion that a technology based on connectedness grows increasingly compelling and valuable as more and more people use it. This especially important for cities and counties since most of their service customers probably us MS products.

These two effects essentially give MS monopoly power: ability to set prices well above production costs.

Economists generally find this monopoly outcome inefficient because consumers are buying MS products not because they are the best but because everyone else uses it. Moreover, entrepreneurs have no incentive to create a better software since no one is going to use it.

[wordout]

3. I will never buy a microsoft product

I use the free version of Word and Excel.