RE: ARM: The Non-Evil Monopolist

> Extremely relevant to the question of whether a fairly-achieved
> monopoly is intrinsically bad, or only bad to the extent that its
> holders try to entrench their position and have tools to undermine
> competition.

Monopoly is not "intrinsically bad" if only because many forms of it are
government sanctioned (i.e., copyright, patent). Antitrust law focuses on
whether monopolies arise in unfair circumstances or monopoly power is used
unfairly against competitors. 

Merely being a monopolist is not enough to warrant damages. It is an
epithet.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen 
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, technology law offices (www.rosenlaw.com) 
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482 
707-485-1242 * fax: 707-485-1243 
email: [email protected] 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim O'Reilly [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2004 10:23 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Fwd: ARM: The Non-Evil Monopolist
> 
> Extremely relevant to the question of whether a fairly-achieved
> monopoly is intrinsically bad, or only bad to the extent that its
> holders try to entrench their position and have tools to undermine
> competition.
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> > From: [email protected]
> > Date: July 10, 2004 3:26:01 AM PDT
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: ARM: The Non-Evil Monopolist
> >
> > Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/09/1953235
> > Posted by: michael, on 2004-07-10 09:02:00
> > Topic: hardware, 81 comments
> >
> >    from the there's-a-slogan-for-you dept.
> >    [1]yootje writes "ZDNet is running [2]an article about [3]ARM, a
> >    chip-maker who controls more than 80% of the cell phone market and
> > 40%
> >    of the digital camera market. ARM shipped 780,000,000 processors
> > last
> >    year. ZDNet finds it strange that no one seems to have anything
> >    against this company. And maybe it is strange: according to the
> >    article many would say ARM is a monopolist, but you never hear
> > anyone
> >    say 'ARM sucks!'. But then again, why would they?"
> >
> > References
> >
> >    1. http://www.compumania.nl/squirt
> >    2. http://zdnet.com.com/The+quiet+monopoly/2100-1103_2-5263641.html
> >    3. http://www.arm.com/
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------
> Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly Media, Inc.
> 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
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