Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> That more than any other issue is why Microsoft has a monopoly.  They 
> offer the system builders a deal, either $X per system if you sell boxes 
> without a Microsoft OS, or $Y per system if you sell every "desktop" or 
> laptop computer with Windows.  And X >> Y, so that to be competitive, 
> they have to sell you a Microsoft OS whether you want it or not.

This is generally well-known story, but what I can't get is why such a deal
was not immediately prosecuted by anti-trust law. Well, I don't know the code
of American law, but my understanding of the general spirit of anti-trust law
is that a company may not interfere (by any agreement) with the prices for goods,
which this company does not supply (at least parts or precursors of those goods
or services for them). And if it tries to do that then it must be prosecuted by
some chapter of anti-trust law.
  Can you explain this issue? (I certainly ask here for general, conceptual
explanation, not for detailed legal analysis.)



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia