Monday, August 24, 2009

In which Microsoft makes me giggle

Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo have teamed up to form something called the "Open Books Alliance" to oppose the Google Books settlement. You can read about it here.

"Open Books Alliance." At least they got that last part right. But it's worth noting that Microsoft is the only one who has been in the book digitizing business and they quit when they couldn't figure out how to make money at it. Now they say it's unfair that someone with a better business model will have an advantage over their own inferior business model. Yes, exactly. Free enterprise is supposed to work that way.

Let me repeat it again: Google is the only one doing this because they're currently the only ones who have both the desire and the financial incentive to do so. That's not a monopoly, at least not in any restraint-of-trade sense.

I suppose I can understand MS's confusion, though - it's a novelty for them to be on this side of a monopoly complaint.

1 comment:

James Hanley said...

But ironic that they would push an antitrust complaint as false as--scratch that, even more obviously false than--the ones leveled at them.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?