ARM’s second quarter report describes 25% growth in revenue, 29 new customers including 9 Cortex A and 12 Cortex M processors. This is proof that investment in research and development of ARMed devices will continue strongly for the next few years.
The reasons for this growth are clear:
- low power consumption is vital for mobile devices,
- people love small cheap computers, and
- because ARM makes modest demands for royalties manufacturers actually make more money from selling devices at lower cost than they can tacking on huge fees for Wintel.
The last point cannot be overemphasized. Hardware makers are running tiny margins on devices with Wintel inside so that the licence for that other OS includes most of the margin. With ARM and Android/Linux margins are many times larger and the margin is mostly in the selling of the hardware not the software and not the chips. This motivates hardware makers to innovate and to produce products that consumers want and not just tolerate. The idea that a small number of businesses hold all innovation on the planet is false and deflating rapidly as even small players can do amazing things with this technology. The Wintel monopoly is on its last legs as consumers can find other systems on retail shelves for the first time in decades anywhere on the planet.
“Recently, the US government had a balanced budget.”
I thought that the last happy days for budgets was back when Bill Clinton was collecting good vibes and tax payments from the .COM IPO stockholders’ profits, but I was wrong. So are you.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090202102522AAOqYA9
It was close, though. The shortfall in 2000 was but a few days worth of expenses in, say, Iraq.
“If you think that bragging about phones is arrogance, you are a pretty hard case…”
Well at least you stopped talking about yourself.
“In antiquity, Somalia was an important centre for commerce with the rest of the ancient world,[15][16] and according to most scholars, Somalia is where the ancient Land of Punt was situated.[17][18] During the Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade, including the Ajuuraan State, the Sultanate of Adal, the Warsangali Sultanate and the Gobroon Dynasty. In the late nineteenth century, the British and Italians gained control of parts of the coast, and established British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland[19] In the interior, Muhammad Abdullah Hassan’s Dervish State successfully repulsed the British Empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region,[20] but the Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920 by British airpower.[21] Italy acquired full control of their parts of the region in 1927. This occupation lasted until 1941, when it was replaced by a British military administration.”
So, Somalia was not a basket-case until the europeans mucked it up.
Recently, the US government had a balanced budget.
“Somalia”
I think that Somalia has been starving and reported in the press long before television was invented, #pogson.
“US government living on credit”
Ditto.
“Lohan DUI?”
I had to google for that to refresh my memory, #pogson. I am surprised that you are such a fan. I would simply note that iconoclasm and taking delight in the fall of the once lofty power such interests, just like they power some FOSS fans to cheer for any setback to Microsoft.
#chapman, you are the villain here. If you think that bragging about phones is arrogance, you are a pretty hard case. Rather, I think that suggesting that I have a problem with pride and am “hollow” for using the common items in widespread use whereas your minimalism is some sort of nobility is true arrogance.
“Somehow I didn’t think you could resist showing us more of yourself Contrarian. You wear your arrogance well.”
As do you Mr. Chapman.
Somehow I didn’t think you could resist showing us more of yourself Contrarian. You wear your arrogance well.
Contrarian wrote, “If you had a TV, you might find how far the world has advanced.”
Chuckle. You mean like
I don’t see much value in television except time-wasting. I have 500 channels and use about 5: weather, CBC, PBS, and some prime-time action time-wasting.
“I’d rather be ignorant that other people live such a hollow existence”
Keep telling yourself that, #chapman. It will keep you from feeling any worse. Do you have indoor sanitary facilities, or do you just have an outhouse? Pump your own well water or connect to the city supply? Have a car or ride a horse? If you had a TV, you might find how far the world has advanced. You can get the wireless phones and cells for less than you are likely to be paying some baby Bell for the wire from the pole you say you use. Having some stuff that works is not being rich and hollow, it is being modern and efficient.
As to your self-belief that you are rich in your relationships with “human relations”, you might waant to re-think that. You certainly do not get my vote on that. Maybe the squirrels do love you though. Do they like to run along the wires linking the telephone poles?
“I think that you are so frustrated, #chapman, because you are telephone poor.”
You speak so proudly of your material possessions. Some people work well with a lot of distractions in their life. I don’t. I need to keep things simple. I may be poor in material distractions but that is certainly not the case with my human relations and my relationship with the other creatures I share this planet with. Please don’t bombard me with your experience of what consider to be a rich environment of electronic toys and accessories. I’d rather be ignorant that other people live such a hollow existence.
“I have a phone on my desk. It’s connected to a telephone pole across the street from my house.”
I have two phones on my desk, #chapman, one is connected to the $19.95 per year Magic Jack box and used for a FAX connection although rarely ever needed. The other is connected to the VOIP cable box modem that supplies the internet connection as well. There are 5 wireless phones scattered around the kitchen, bedrooms, and family room that connect to the cable company “line” which is $25 per mo although I got a one year discount for switching from Vonage.
We don’t have any telephone poles, though. The cable comes in from an underground box. The phone company does the same, but they charge too much. It’s nicer to not have poles, too. I remember we had telephone poles everywhere when I was in grade school and high school.
I have a couple of cell phones, one in each car, that connect to the Microsoft Sync service via Bluetooth. Very handy, IMO.
The kids all have smart phones, two iPhones, one Blackberry, one Evo, and two Samsung WP7 phones. Their kids only have the cheap feature phones.
I think that you are so frustrated, #chapman, because you are telephone poor. Why not turn loose of that spare cash and choose something better than a phone connected to a pole? It might make you more sociable if you get out more.
“By the way Contrarian, the way in which you use the word “choose†marks you as a Microsoft TE.”
“Must be nice when you disagree with the World. You just make new definitions for words to suit your needs.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself…
I have a phone on my desk. It’s connected to a telephone pole across the street from my house. My daughter has a phone that’s not connected to anything except a charger now and then. I guess Contrarian uses Microsoft’s definition of the word “choose” when he chooses to ignore the difference between the two phones. When I bought my first CP/M computer my daughter’s phone would have put that era’s super computers to shame.
Must be nice when you disagree with the World. You just make new definitions for words to suit your needs.
By the way Contrarian, the way in which you use the word “choose” marks you as a Microsoft TE. If you choose to protest that label you may want to ditch the use of the word all together.
“Have you ever heard of a user of Android demanding retraining?”
People do not use Android, per se, #pogson, they are using a phone with apps. Split hairs all you want, but there is a significant difference between a phone and a computer regardless of any techie pilpul that you might want to assert. I would expect that there has been a lot of training offered to corporate users who have been given an iPad for some business purpose. I don’t think that many companies are buying Android tablets.
In any case the issue being discussed was not, in my view, in regard to Android on phones. It was in regard to exchanging a Linux computer with whatever apps were needed for a Windows computer with traditional office automation apps.
Do the maths. If a household has five computers, one pays M$ $hundreds. With GNU/Linux one or five is the same low price.
That works but takes more time. For simple tasks that wastes too much time, for instance if a user just needs word-processing or spreadsheets, autostart the application and he never sees the OS except for file/save/print.
If there are many applications the gradual approach makes a lot more sense. You can even keep the icon and change the app it activates…
The real solution is to go to web-based apps so that the browser is the one application the user has much to do with on the client machine.
Repeatedly folks find retraining is not that much of an issue. Have you ever heard of a user of Android demanding retraining? How different is that OS compared to the slight change for XP–>GNU/Linux?
@ Contrarian:
One option that I advise is gradually switching to FOSS on Windows, where appropriate, then only switching to Linux once everything on top of Windows is already FOSS. Then the users are still running the “old Windows programs” and the shift in OS UI is a minimal change.
I’ve seen this happen, and I’ve seen it happen without anywhere near the level of fuss, confusion, cost, and lost productivity you seem to think is inevitable.
“So when a business upgrades Windows or Microsoft Office to a newer version with a different interface, there will still be retraining as people have to figure out where MS shuffled the UI elements around this time.”
Oh, there is far, far less to do in that regard and the new OS is running the old Windows programs in most cases, and that is what the users are seeing, i.e. the same apps working the same way. FOSS is like landing on the moon and wondering where to go to eat.
“with GNU/Linux you don’t pay for the malware, nor the re-re-reboots,”
I’ve never been infect with malware, and re-re-rte boot are a non event.
“with GNU/Linux you get “premium ultra fantastic†for no extra charge,”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH…(recovers gasping)…
I didnt realize desktop Linux has any such thing.
“with GNU/Linux you can install the software on any number of other machines and give copies to your friends, if you have any, and”
SO what?
“with GNU/Linux you can change almost anything about the OS.”
Why would I want to do that? I need to get tasks accomplished, not tinker with plumbing.
Don’t forget:
Am I the only one who noticed that Macs are PCs too, and are another choice?
“Most Linux users are quite willing to pay for hardware as opposed to dumpster diving for it.”
My experience makes me question “Most”. In institutional environments that are oriented toward or tolerant of Linux, then this is true (though the individual doesnt provide the cash). Nowever once you get outside professionals who are looking for the right tools for their tasks, you very rapidly get into What I view as the reality – a community of users who are either Frugal (like Pog) or refusniks (like Chappy) or hobbyists who are tinkering with Linux on old hardware that “wasnt useable for anything else”.
A good chunk of the The linux community that I am familiar is built on re-purposed equipment.
@ Contrarian.:
But it isn’t FOSS or Linux that you are arguing against here. It’s change. Those retraining costs you mention would be just as applicable to a change from Windows to OSX, XP to 7, or from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2010.
So when a business upgrades Windows or Microsoft Office to a newer version with a different interface, there will still be retraining as people have to figure out where MS shuffled the UI elements around this time.
I grant you the point if we are talking about sticking with the same version of an operating system and office suite forever, but that’s hardly practical in the long run. The cost you are talking about here is going to be a constant no matter what a business does.
“I like trainable employees. Why would you hire any other kind?”
It is not so easy to know the depths of that characteristic for a prospective employee, but that is not the issue here. Rather it is the cost of retraining. Do you think that is zero or nearly zero?
The bald facts are that using FOSS in general and Linux in particular does not offer enough of a cost savings to justify the likely expense of the initial training or retraining as the case may be.
It sounds to me that they are doing wellâ€
As they should be, #pogson. For one example, they offer the sporty i3 based Ubuntu Strata,
http://zareason.com/shop/Strata-5330.html
free of the oppressive Microsoft Tax for a mere $699 and it comes with 2GB of RAM and a huge 160GB hard drive.
By contrast, the abused Windows buyer might be tricked into buying a Windows-powered Dell such as
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-intel-n5040/pd?oc=fncwb28&model_id=inspiron-15-intel-n5040
for $499 (free shipping) and 4GB of RAM (required for the hoggish Windows, presumably) and 500GB hard drive (for all the bloated Microsoft stuff).
The clear-thinking FOSS fans will doubtless flock to this opportunity. As soon as the uneducated masses wake up to the opportunity to pay more and get less, offered by the ZaReason Linux machine, Microsoft (and Dell) are doomed.
I like trainable employees. Why would you hire any other kind?
“doing more with less is always a good thing in business.”
That sounds good, but it really might not be the smartest thing to do. When you consider the burdened cost of an employee in general, a savings of $1000 or more on initial equipment purchase disappears in a hurry when whatever you did to save it impedes the employee’s progress by even a slight bit down the road as needs might change.
The reason that there is such a high barrier to change in commercial business is the learning curve for employees, not the price of the new technology. And people have been using MS platforms and office automation products on PCs for 25 years or more. They do not cost enough for any sane business owner to risk any disturbance in procedures in order to recover part of those costs.
The image of Richad Stallman watching over one’s fortunes gives just about everyone pause as well. Would you buy a used car from that man?
@ oldman:
Most Linux users are quite willing to pay for hardware as opposed to dumpster diving for it.
If by dumpster diving, you mean “knowing what specs are good enough for the use case and what might be overkill”, then you’d be right. If a Linux user is going to use a PC for heavy duty video editing or scientific programming, then a Core i7 with 8 GB ram and a top of the line graphics card might be appropriate. But if they will be using a PC largely for mundane email and office tasks, then a much less powerful machine will suffice. It might take that Core i7 and 8GB of ram just to run Windows, but Linux can make do with a far smaller resource footprint.
That doesn’t mean that a Linux user wouldn’t by the high end machine, but it does mean that they can get more use out of lesser hardware–and doing more with less is always a good thing in business.
“How many “specialties†does an OS need to gather before oldman considers it mainstream? That’s a pretty wide spectrum of IT.”
No Pog, Linux is mainstream Pog as a server class OS. It isnt even close on the desktop.
“All over the world, folks considering migrating to “7″ or the cloud or GNU/Linux are now appreciating what a disastrous mistake it was to lock in to Wintel and large shifts away from Wintel are occurring without government assistance. ”
This is fantasy Pog, There was no disaster! Desktop computers have a wide spectrum of applications rich in function and feature at every price point. the fact that it is available on one platform is to be frank irrelevant.
People will need only migrate to 7 when the applications that they are running are no longer supported on the version of windows OS that they are supported, or after XP support ends in 2014. By that time the youngest systems running XP will be 4 years old – Young enough to be upgraded. That upgrade BTW, remains far easier than the potentially wrenching fork lift upgrade needed to move to a Linux desktop, that is assumingthat youcan figure out which distribution you want to actually rely on.
How many “specialties” does an OS need to gather before oldman considers it mainstream? That’s a pretty wide spectrum of IT.
oldman wrote, “Shall we coerce business into puting linux and FOSS on the shelves?”
Clearly, M$ no longer has much power to dictate what ends up on retail shelves but the monopoly is still de facto in North America. It would be appropriate for consumer-protection laws to stomp on retailers but governments seem to lack the will. It took a decade to establish the full power of Wintel. It takes time to eliminate the last vestiges of it. All over the world, folks considering migrating to “7” or the cloud or GNU/Linux are now appreciating what a disastrous mistake it was to lock in to Wintel and large shifts away from Wintel are occurring without government assistance. Still, M$ and its “partners” got away with murder.
As with smoking, governments could educate themselves and consumers to choice in IT. It would be a valuable public services. In educational curriculi often there is no bias to Wintel. That is still in the minds of the operators of the educational system.
I did a search for site:gc.ca linux and guess what I found? Documents educating people about linux:
“Hammer or wrist slap a conviction is a conviction (ala “oldmanâ€). Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. That’s the reality.”
OK, Chappie:
You’ve made your point. Now what do you propose as the solution?
Shall we coerce business into puting linux and FOSS on the shelves? Shall we coerce people into buying Linux based machines? Shall we take away tools that work and replace them with tools that may not?
What say you?
“It sounds to me that they are doing well.”
From the zareason site itself we find in their own words
“we managed to attract the coolest customer base, i.e. the developers, programmers, thinkers, small business owners, and even the government.”
We have hear a specialty company that has tapped into the even smaller market of Linux oriented users who are actually willing to pay for hardware as opposed to dumpster diving for it. Even if they thrive, its hardly a groundswell.
Meh.
So we ha
“ZaReason and System76 say “hi—
Who?
“05-26-2011
Price drops and the Teo Pro
Everybody who wants to see FOSS thrive has been happy to see ZaReason growing quickly. After four years of building a solid foundation, we hit the point of rapid growth. In the last month alone we have brought on 14 new employees to handle the builds! We are very happy to have things growing quickly (and yes, our About page is woefully out of date!)”
see http://zareason.com/shop/news.php
It sounds to me that they are doing well.
Well, I was around when Windows 3.1 was pre-installed on every computer that wasn’t an Apple computer. The only way to get a PC without Windows was to build it yourself. I actually thought it was a good idea at the time since there were three different hard drive controllers and installing the OS on a bare drive could be a real PITA. It certainly wasn’t anything Mom and Pop could do. But it did bring down the Federal Government on Microsoft and just as the hammer was about to connect, it turned into a wrist slap. Hammer or wrist slap a conviction is a conviction (ala “oldman”). Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. That’s the reality.
@ oldman:
ZaReason and System76 say “hi”
“People sell GNU/Linux desktops and make money. Why would they not?”
Do they make money pog?
I’ll bet good money that most of those vendors who offer linux desktops do so in a very limited manner built on low end hardware, and very few if any sell Linux desktops exclusively.
People sell GNU/Linux desktops and make money. Why would they not?
“People who were not alive in 1980 are buying PCs today. Where’s their choice?”
What choice would you offer that has the same application function and feature and ubiquitous support.
Do you expect them to be hobbyists and put up with what the community provides on the desktop?
Do you expect the vendors to give up the whole built in support network that makes their post sales job easier so that they can make an additional $50.00 per desktop, only to have to spend that and more supporting their clients?
Do you expect vendors to only sell small cheap computers that have zero margin to people that they wont see again for years?
DO you really believe that a linux desktop is going to magically become profitable?
The monopoly was created before the GUI, with DOS, not that other OS.
Nope. M$ got an exclusive deal and they got $X a copy. It was the guy who actually developed DOS who got the $50K.
see DOS
ISVs made software for DOS because IBM backed it and IBM was big with business.
People who were not alive in 1980 are buying PCs today. Where’s their choice?
“That is a lie and Contrarian knows it.”
I cannot believe that an old timer like yourself would miss the point so badly, #pogson. Certainly Microsoft had the power to compel OEMs to take favorable deals. Why?
The answer is that people would only buy PCs with Windows pre-installed due to their previous decision to use Windows and not OS/2 or Linux or Unix. The egg comes before the chicken, #pogson, and that is where the choice was made. It cannot be any other way. Once Microsoft was in the driver’s seat, you may disagree with their policies and tactics, as 28 states and the DOJ actually did do, but you cannot avoid the fact that it was because Windows was the de facto standard choice of the consumer and therefore the only viable choice for the OEMs that led to the charges.
You say “Merit was not an issue” but that is equally wrong unless you made the assertion that all the consumers were complete fools and prone to all choose the worst solution. Actually, if they were all complete fools then they would likely have chosen all options equally since they would have no valid selection criteria. But they chose PC-DOS almost totally, strongly suggesting that there was something compelling, perhaps the price which was less than alternatives, but there is merit in that, too.
“M$ got an exclusive deal with IBM.”
Actually IBM got an unlimited license deal with Microsoft that allowed them to sell as many copies of PC-DOS as they wished for the same lump sum price. IIRC it was around $50K for that license. How many copies of PCDOS did IBM sell? Most likely it was a lot more than 1000 and they were selling it for $50.
M$ got an exclusive deal with IBM.
Contrarian wrote, “Microsoft “convinced†OEMs to pre-install Windows on their computers by first demonstrating that Windows was the preferred platform of the expected users of the computer. “
That is a lie and Contrarian knows it. M$ forced OEMs to pre-install M$’s OS and no other for fear of serious economic penalties in a highly competitive market for hardware.
From the court’s Findings of Fact in US DOJ v M$:
“64. An aspect of Microsoft’s pricing behavior that, while not tending to prove monopoly power, is consistent with it is the fact that the firm charges different OEMs different prices for Windows, depending on the degree to which the individual OEMs comply with Microsoft’s wishes. Among the five largest OEMs, Gateway and IBM, which in various ways have resisted Microsoft’s efforts to enlist them in its efforts to preserve the applications barrier to entry, pay higher prices than Compaq, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, which have pursued less contentious relationships with Microsoft…
66. Furthermore, Microsoft expends a significant portion of its monopoly power, which could otherwise be spent maximizing price, on imposing burdensome restrictions on its customers — and in inducing them to behave in ways — that augment and prolong that monopoly power. For example, Microsoft attaches to a Windows license conditions that restrict the ability of OEMs to promote software that Microsoft believes could weaken the applications barrier to entry. Microsoft also charges a lower price to OEMs who agree to ensure that all of their Windows machines are powerful enough to run Windows NT for Workstations. To the extent this provision induces OEMs to concentrate their efforts on the development of relatively powerful, expensive PCs, it makes OEMs less likely to pursue simultaneously the opposite path of developing “thin client” systems, which could threaten demand for Microsoft’s Intel- compatible PC operating system products. In addition, Microsoft charges a lower price to OEMs who agree to ship all but a minute fraction of their machines with an operating system pre- installed. While this helps combat piracy, it also makes it less likely that consumers will detect increases in the price of Windows and renders operating systems not pre-installed by OEMs in large numbers even less attractive to consumers.”
IBM persuaded OEMs and ISVs to produce mostly for that other OS by shipping only DOS from M$ on the first IBM PCs. Merit was not an issue.
“Once Microsoft “convinced†OEMs to pre-install Windows on their computers, choice in the OS was effectively eliminated. But that’s exactly what you call choice…”
You continue to confuse cause with effect, #chapman, and that continues to be your undoing. Microsoft “convinced” OEMs to pre-install Windows on their computers by first demonstrating that Windows was the preferred platform of the expected users of the computer. Then they offered Windows in a low cost OEM license version that made the prospect very attractive to OEMs who might be faced with alternative actions by others. It was so alluring that virtually every OEM bought into the deal. Those who agreed to even better terms for complete acceptance of Microsoft configuration restrictions received even better terms.
It was a partnership effort, #chapman, a partnership effort.
“When IBM produced its PC…”
You have a rather convenient grasp of computer history, #pogson. It seems to be necessary to support your thesis, but it leaves out a lot of important facts.
For starters, the original PC was offered with PC DOS (licensed from Microsoft), CPM-86, and some obscure UCSD Pascal interpreter at varying price points. PC-DOS was the least expensive, around $50 IIRC. Prices for alternatives were set by the vendors. I picked PC-DOS just because I used the difference in budget, around $250 IIRC, to buy an extra 48K of RAM.
At that time, there was the TRS-80 Model III from Radio Shack and the Apple II from Apple. You could buy a few others, such as TI, or you could build your own S-100 using mail order parts. The S-100 used CP/M, I think. There was actually a lot of choice and I was sort of an odd ball in my company where the other managers elected to buy Apple II machines.
Apple and Radio Shack had the majority of the busineess back then and Apple was a pretty successful company at that time. It was not such a slam dunk victory bequeathed to Microsoft as you infer.
Subsequent to that event, Microsoft had to contend with Apple’s Macintosh GUI introduction as well as IBM’s insistence on OS/2 as the business OS for their PS/2 revolution. Both companies were far larger than Microsoft in those days and virtually controlled the entirety of the “home computer” market. Microsoft could not command anything to happen, they had to influence users to do that for them, first by buying IBM PCs or clones instead of Apple Macs and next by getting business to use Windows instead of OS/2. Users were certainly provided with enough choice in that regard along with very strong influences from advertising and direct sales promotions by the big companies.
It is a simple matter for the Linux advocates to dismiss Microsoft’s success as the result of some nefarious activity that still remains somewhat unexplained as to how they could exercise such mind control over so wide of a range of interests as you suggest. But it is not the truth of the matter and not even close to the truth of the matter.
Even today, the analysts are suggesting that ARM netbooks will succeed only with the advent of Windows 8. That is what the consumers are expected to prefer and that is what the OEMs will have to deliver.
“The vast majority of users chose Windows over its competitors…”
Once Microsoft “convinced” OEMs to pre-install Windows on their computers, choice in the OS was effectively eliminated. But that’s exactly what you call choice.
That’s what we call the Reality Gap Contratian, the Reality Gap. And it appears yours is getting wider, getting wider Contrarian. So it looks like even communicating with you has had a bad influence on me, bad influence.
Contrarian wrote, “The vast majority of users chose Windows”
HA! There are something like 1400 million x86 PCs in the world and most of them were the only choice on retail shelves so there was no choice.
When IBM produced its PC, the world wanted to produce software for it and the only OS that IBM distributed was DOS from M$. That monopoly was granted by IBM not consumers. When the GUI came along, the monopoly followed it. So, there has not been much choice since the 1980s when retail PCs became available. Before that there was diversity and homebrews. Effectively, for more than a generation there was very little choice. When M$ benefitted from monopoly they used what power they had to exclude competition and to exclude alternatives therefor preserving the monopoly. ARM+Android/Linux is an end-around play which bypasses M$’s partnerships. It’s about time.
“I suspect the reality of the Microsoft monopoly will be even more so.”
Empty words, #chapman, empty words. The personal computer itself, in breaking the Big Blue, centralized computing architecture “monopoly” is more akin to the ATT situation. With PCs, the world opened up to a wide choice of models with a variety of OS platforms. The vast majority of users chose Windows over its competitors and today almost all PCs use Windows. Way less than 10% use everything else combined.
Kind of reminds me of when AT&T lost their monopoly status. Suddenly the market was full of inexpensive phones of many different styles and innovations. And you could buy them, not lease them! The burden of the AT&T monopoly did not become clear until it was gone, then it was realized just how bad it really was. I suspect the reality of the Microsoft monopoly will be even more so.