Re: Microsoft's OS competitors

On 4/28/97, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> I wanted to focus on Steve's second explanation for a minute. One of
> the arguments for strong intellectual property protection in software
> is that absent it, copying will be immediate and fatal to market
> returns. Steve's argument, if true, undermines this case, at least
> for operating systems. It may be that weak intellectual property
> protection, or protection of uncertain scope, is sufficient *in this
> market* to give companies like Microsoft all the protection they need.
> [Peter Menell has made this point before; see 41 Stan. L. Rev. 1045
> and 39 Stan. L. Rev. 1329]

Copyright protection may not be critical to maintaining Microsoft's position in the operating system market, but it was critical to achieving the dominant position that it now enjoys and exploits. If IBM, Compaq, Dell, etc., etc. could simply have installed DOS on their computers without compensating Microsoft, Bill Gates would still be an anonymous hacker.

John Noble
<jnoble[_at_]dgs.dgsys.com> Received on Tue Apr 29 1997 - 20:08:20 GMT