Re: OT: Steve Ballmer
[Wikipedia has a formal definition of "natural monopoly." Go read it. With respect to the criteria that it defines, and the economic sytem that we actually have, Windows is IMO rather clearly a "natural monopoly." Period. ]
Oddly enough, I just happen to have a copy of Mankiw 'Principles of Microeconomics' on my bookshelf so I don't have to rely on Wikipedia for the definition of economic terms. Mankiw says 'An industry is a natural monopoly when a single firm can supply a good or service to an entire market at a lower cost than could one or more firms. A natural monopoly arises when there are economies of scale over a range of output.' There's nothing to prevent anybody from offering an operating system at a lower cost than Microsoft and, in fact, many people have. If you want to claim that Microsoft has a 'natural monopoly' in the Windows operating system market, well, sure, because the patents and copyrights ensure nobody can offer the product for lower cost. What you are trying to say, I think, is that once Windows attained a dominant share of the OS market, there were network effects that tended to reinforce their dominance. I wouldn't argue with that at all. Nor would I argue with the notion that patents and copyrights create monopolies, that's the point after all. My only quibble is the misuse of the term 'natural monopoly'. The fact that one of the authors of Wikipedia doesn't know what it means either isn't persuasive.