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EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Kimberly Sweet
' V ■" - • > ■ •
\
QUOTES
OF THE WEEK
'
We have a competitive edge because of
the technology we have. That margin is
going to disappear if we don’t move
fast. _.
Beth Klosterman, member ofNU’s Task
Force on Administrative Efficiency
Microsoft is committed to resolving
this matter in a fair and responsible
manner, while ensuring that the funda
mental principals of consumer benefit
and innovation are protected.
Bill Gates, responding to the finding by
the court that Microsoft abused its
monopoly
It was time for the family to close that
chapter of their life.
Marlene Ford, of Ford and Ford
-Auctioneers Inc., on the recent sale of
Bob Devaney memorabilia
I thought it was just like throwing
money away.
Charles Anderson, whose wife “threw
away” $70 a week on lottery tickets for
five years before winning $5 million-plus
We didn’t realize what all it entailed in
running a fraternity and why things
had gone wrong.
Jaron Luttich, president of the remark
ably reformed Chi Phi
Nobody’s even gotten close to getting
sick.
Darren Peterson, NU on Wheels cab dri
ver
At this point it was all quiet.
Everything just stopped.
. Christiane Mischek, on the announce
ment made in Germany 10 years ago that
the Berlin Wall had been opened
That’s just totally wrong.
Athletic Ticket Office Manager John
Anderson on the ticket taker accused of
letting a group into a football game for
$100
Several times a year I’ll have an officer
tested for communicable diseases.
Police Chief Tom Casady
It’s a dream of mine but won’t seem
true until it actually happens. I contin
ue to work for it every day.
Chris Mihm, Texas center, on his hopes to
play in the NBA
When someone comes up to you and
asks if you want to be in a movie, you’re
not like, “Oh, forget it.”
Mike Callahan, star of David Iske s fresh
man effort, “The Dean s Boys ”
We’re playing with students’ money.
ASUN Communications Committee
Chairman Heath Mello
In my mind I’m going a hundred miles
a minute.
Sharolta Nonen, UNL and Canadian
national team soccer player
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Editorial Policy
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the Fall 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the
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A column is solely the opinion of its author.
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Obermever’s
VIEW
.. . ...
UMH...WHY AREN’i
&OIWG
■ANYWHERg?
Fool
Josh Moenning is a simple-minded
fool. He claims that Ron Brown
and other Christians are not intolerant
of homosexuals, rather they
are following the word of God.
But if God indeed punishes
homosexuals with damnation, then he
himself is intolerant. And those who
follow God in this respect are no better.
Patrick Monaghan
senior
philosophy
Married and Insured
In Tuesday’s letters, Chase Petsche
argued that the university discourages
marriage and promotes homosexuali
ty.
In his letter he falsely claimed that
married students are charged more for
health insurance.
The health insurance policy
charges the same amount for married
and unmarried students, $399 each.
Only if a spouse is not a student
does the policy require that person to
pay the standard
rate (for
Melanie Falk/DN
DN
LETTERS
Monumental Life Insurance
Company).
As for tolerating homosexuality:
As a man married to a wonderful
wife, I obviously am not promoting
homosexuality. But you must be an
evil man if you won’t even tolerate dif
ferences in people.
Scott Whitney
graduate student
chemical engineering
Spanish Reader
I very much enjoyed reading
Monday’s column by Horacio Perez. It
was stimulating and afforded me the
opportunity to practice reading in
Spanish.
Michael De La Garza
graduate student
history ■
MicroSurf
Marcus Graham’s letter in the
Tuesday DN was a rather enlightening
account of the predominance of
Windows in the professional world.
However, I feel it fails to
justify the true argu
ment at hand.
What is said in
the media is not a
substitute for
actually reading
the 200-plus
page docu
ment released
%f -Nov. 5.
M While the
1 operating sys
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i::. M is a component
| of this case,
i'« there are other
k 1 focus points
Hm for the
W Department of
W Justice that coa
j lesce to the extent
* that the govern
ment believes
\
V
Microsoft uses its market power in an
unfair way toward firms.
The fact that Windows is present in
75 percent of all computers has little to
do with the case.
A monopoly is an allowable form
of market structure in the United
States. However, attempts of monopo
lization or committing actions to sus
tain monopolized market power
are illegal. The main question at hand
is how Microsoft acquired that market
power and if Microsoft uses it fairly.
One of Microsoft’s problems is
Web browsing. Bill Gates himself stat
ed in his 1994 book (I forget the
title) that he believed that the World
Wide Web would not become a major
component of personal computing.
He asserted that its main focus
would be in the form of business-to
business contact. While he made
comments like these and only slowly
developed Internet Explorer, a small
company called Netscape was franti
cally developing its Web browser.
boon alter, Bill Oates realized his
mistake as millions of people jumped
on the Internet worldwide, using
Netscape. His Internet Explorer had a
lot of catching up to do. An easy way to
do this was simply to distribute it for
free as an add-on to most
Microsoft products.
Now, all Windows systems
automatically install it. Other software,
such as Office, do the same. I recently
bought Office 2000 for my PC and I
couldn’t install the software until I had
agreed to let the software install
Internet Explorer as well.
This practice is uniair to Netscape
and other companies that may have
wanted to develop a browser but didn’t
because who would buy it if Internet
Explorer is free? In essence, Microsoft
is crowding out the competition by not
even giving them a chance, which is an
act to sustain a monopoly.
Imagine owning a video store
where you rent only videos to con
sumers, then one day a huge company
that produces VCRs but had over
looked the video rental market says
that if you buy a VCR then you can
have all the free video rentals you
| want. Your video store isn’t going
to be around for too much longer. •
Competition means more
choice, greater innovation and
lower prices in the OS/software
industry and, if
Microsoft must be broken off into
several companies in order to
achieve competition, then so be it
Andrew Cusano
graduate student
economics
