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Under the Gun (6/8/98)
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First Microsoft, and now Intel... The federal government extended its antitrust attack on the Wintel hegemony today, when the Federal Trade Commission announced its long-expected intention to sue Intel for violating antitrust laws by strongarming customers and competitors alike. A Wired News article has more details.
The main impetus behind the suit appears to be Intel's dealings with Intergraph, a computer company who recently took Intel to court for allegedly muscling them by witholding vital information about their chips. A couple of months ago, a federal judge ruled in favor of Intergraph and issued a preliminary injunction requiring Intel to provide Intergraph with the same info they gave to other manufacturers. The FTC examined this case as it decided to pursue antitrust action against Intel.
The real question this raises, of course, is, "How does this affect us?" We at AtAT see two possible effects of the Wintel antitrust suits upon the Mac-using world. First of all, there's the potential for Apple to make some serious inroads into all computer markets, if Microsoft and/or Intel is slowed down by legal issues. And secondly, there's the possibility that government interference in the workings of the largest hardware and software giants in the computer field may stifle innovation across the board and slow the progress of the whole industry to a crawl. We seriously doubt that second one, though. With Motorola and IBM continuously improving the PowerPC and Apple readying Mac OS 8.5, 9.0, and X, we're not overly concerned about lack of innovation on the Mac side of the fence. We think Apple and the other PowerPC partners should step up advertising soon to see if they can take advantage of all this legal bustle.
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SceneLink (757)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 6/8/98 episode: June 8, 1998: We're back! And just in time, too, judging by the upcoming competition; HBO reportedly plans a miniseries on the history of Apple starring Tom Hanks. Meanwhile, not content with taking on Microsoft, the government saddles up against Intel, and Keyspan announces a product which may ease our transition to the USB standard...
Other scenes from that episode: 756: Ready For Our Close-Up (6/8/98) What better way to return to our regularly-scheduled program than to discuss HBO's planned miniseries on the history of our fave Cupertino computer company? It's mentioned briefly in a Variety article that we noticed over at Reality; apparently HBO is so jazzed by how much people liked their "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries that they're planning more of the same... 758: The Great Migration (6/8/98) While most of the debate that continues to rage over the paradigm-busting design of the forthcoming iMac centers on its lack of a floppy drive, don't forget that it also has no ADB, SCSI, or Mac-standard serial ports...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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