This point:
Monopoly Economics and Culture: Microsoft's 2 core businesses -- Windows and Office -- are natural winner-take-all monopolies. What it takes to maintain these businesses in a financially successful way is very different than what it takes to create successful new businesses.
Really doesn't ring true at all. "Windows" and "Ofiice" as natural monopolies? That's not at all the stock definition of natural monopolies. Natural monopolies classically are said to occur in markets like electric power, phone service, natural gas service, where there's an inescapable (ie not legislated or state-maintained) huge cost of entry into the market, and then each additional customer has an almost neglible marginal cost.
A "winner-take-all monopoloy"? I dunno, that smacks of network effects, a la Hal Varian. (http://www.inforules.com/models/m-net.pdf.pdf ). Do Microsoft boosters really want to go there? Because in the case of a good that's got really, really strong network effects, a little sub rosa action could go a long ways to tipping the balance one way or the other.
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This point: Monopoly Economics and Culture: Microsoft's 2 core businesses -- Windows and Office -- are natural winner-take-all monopolies. What it takes to maintain these businesses in a financially successful way is very different than what it takes to create successful new businesses.
Really doesn't ring true at all. "Windows" and "Ofiice" as natural monopolies? That's not at all the stock definition of natural monopolies. Natural monopolies classically are said to occur in markets like electric power, phone service, natural gas service, where there's an inescapable (ie not legislated or state-maintained) huge cost of entry into the market, and then each additional customer has an almost neglible marginal cost.
A "winner-take-all monopoloy"? I dunno, that smacks of network effects, a la Hal Varian. (http://www.inforules.com/models/m-net.pdf.pdf ). Do Microsoft boosters really want to go there? Because in the case of a good that's got really, really strong network effects, a little sub rosa action could go a long ways to tipping the balance one way or the other.