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0 pointsformercoder5y ago0 comments

Predatory pricing is a component of anti trust but a very difficult one to prove legally. One must prove that by giving consumers a cheaper product they are being harmed. It's an interesting conundrum.

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orf5y ago

But it's not that they just gave consumers a cheaper product - they used their dominance in a specific market to gain dominance in another. It's the same thing as bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

nodamage5y ago

Bundling IE with Windows was never actually ruled to be illegal. The appeals court overturned the district court's initial ruling and remanded it for further analysis, but the case was ultimately settled before any ruling could be made.

WorldMaker5y ago

Also, from the 2020 perspective Microsoft seems to have been right that the browser is an important operating system feature/component and may have simply been ahead of the curve in realizing it. (Today's mobile OSes all make the case that it should be a tightly OS managed component. Most consumers today would be extremely confused if an OS didn't include a browser at all; whether or not they primarily use that browser to install a more preferred browser.) It's easy in 2020 to wonder if the Microsoft anti-trust effort delayed innovations like PWA standards and got in the way of people thinking to build earlier cross-platform, lighter weight HTML "app frameworks" than what we are seeing in this timeline with Electron.

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toyg5y ago

It’s hard to argue chat is a different market from office. IBM sold Lotus Notes with integrated IM (Sametime, iirc) 15 years ago.

WorldMaker5y ago

Except that in this particular case the aren't "unrelated" markets: Office 365 is a bundle of (enterprise) Productivity Apps and Teams is an (enterprise) Productivity app.

We also know that from a technical perspective Teams actually was a "cheaper product" because it was built on the backs of other existing parts of Office 365. It shares a ton of backend with SharePoint and it swallowed up Skype for Business/Lync. Both key products of the "bundle" before Microsoft decided on a need to compete with Slack.

Teckla5y ago

Except that in this particular case the aren't "unrelated" markets: Office 365 is a bundle of (enterprise) Productivity Apps and Teams is an (enterprise) Productivity app.

You can expand the definition of "(enterprise) Productivity Apps" ad infinitum.

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orf5y ago

nodamage5y ago

WorldMaker5y ago

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toyg5y ago

It’s hard to argue chat is a different market from office. IBM sold Lotus Notes with integrated IM (Sametime, iirc) 15 years ago.

WorldMaker5y ago

Except that in this particular case the aren't "unrelated" markets: Office 365 is a bundle of (enterprise) Productivity Apps and Teams is an (enterprise) Productivity app.

Teckla5y ago

Except that in this particular case the aren't "unrelated" markets: Office 365 is a bundle of (enterprise) Productivity Apps and Teams is an (enterprise) Productivity app.

You can expand the definition of "(enterprise) Productivity Apps" ad infinitum.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse