Misbehaving Monopolies (There ought to be a law about that!)

Member Name: Jameztoo

Product:	There ought to be a law about that!
Date:	06/03/02 (245 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: They make lots of money., You can have what you want - as long as it is our product

Disadvantages: Evil, capitalist swines, - ahem

Well yes there are laws about it in this country, but companies will always get around them and most often will win in court cases.

I've chosen to rant about two companies: Microsoft and Nestlé. I believe they both have acted irresponsibly in the past and I believe they are still trading simply because they are large over bloated conglomorates (they no longer fit into the company description )

Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)
Many people are already aware of both this company's products but also their transgressions.
Microsoft's biggest transgressions have seen them taken to court, but as of yet we have yet to see any court impose severe penalties on them.
I do not know all the details of these court cases, but I know that one of the court cases were about Microsoft's inclusion of their web browser into their Operating System. A very sneaky ploy to dominate the browser market.
Another case I know about is about Java (A programming language developed by Sun). This problem was that Microsoft invented their own brew of Java and it didn't conform to standards. I think this is one case that Microsoft might actually have lost, because we no longer see Microsoft Java products - someone will surely correct me.

I've even heard people say that it's cool to hate microsoft, so much so that there is a website devoted to it: http://www.ihatemicrosoft.com/
If you want real material (rather than my opinions - go there) It even gives a warning if you are using IE - impressive.
Anyway much though a lot of us might hate microsoft we continue to use their products, why? Because they have a stranglehold of the market. I use Microsoft's products at work and at home, why? Because they have made it hard not to. If I send you a MSWord document - you'll be able to read it. If I send you a Claris works document you have almost no chance.
My company is a Microsoft shop, by this I mean that our products run
on Microsoft platforms. True we also support other platforms with some of our products but almost everything runs on some Windows or another.

What really gets me though about Microsoft is that they are so big, so big that if some smaller company comes along with a good idea and it could make some money and make them rich, Microsoft's agressive strategy is to buy them out. If the other company disagrees and can resist (for a bit) then Microsoft will most likely release a buggy product to compete and the CEOs will choose Microsoft over the other company because its the safer choice (even though its probably the poorer product)

I suspect the problem is that these are perfectly reasonable actions for a business to take and maybe I'm a little bit of a socialist where that is concerned. The counter to my arguments (which I suspect are pretty weak) are that I am knocking successful companies who are making sound business decisions.

I would prefer if Microsoft were to act a little more fairly.

Nestlé (www.nestle.com)
Nestle "The Worlds food company" - or so their website claims. I've only recently started to hate Nestle recently, and I believe for some very good reasons.
One of which is that they are a big monopoly, which have discussed a little, in my rant above, about Microsoft, and I will probably come back to this. First however I must explain the reason I first started loathing this company.

This company has no ethics. None whatsoever. The prime example of this is in their selling of baby milk. Some people will already know exactly what I am talking about. For those that don't I will attempt to explain briefly, but before I do I think that I should mention this website which covers all the facts clearly and straightforwardly:
http://www.babymilkaction.org

Ok baby milk:
There are several laws governing this product most of which are related to advertising and marketing. I
do not know or claim to know what they are or how well they work but the idea is to prevent baby milk companies from:
1. Advising the use of baby milk products instead of breast milk.
2. Comparing the products to breast milk
3. Advertising alternatives to breast milk (which is acceptable) without providing sufficient information in that advertisment. (which isn't).
There are other goals but I think you get the general picture. What makes it worse is that companies like Nestle (who are not the only culprits) target their sales in third world countries. They do this because people in the first world - in Western cultures particularly are more aware, we know that breast milk is better and at what age it is suitable to start feeding babies formulaic milk. In addition if we do not know, we have the means to find out.
In the third world these mothers are less clued up.
The other things that I have heard (but do not know the facts) is that Nestle and others have given away free samples of their products to mothers with babies, to get the babies hooked, and then the mothers have to fork out full price for the products. Also when the products are given out no advice is given that clean water needs to be used - something which isn't readily always available. Finally the instructions on the packaging is in English not in the local language.

So they break and bend those rules, the baby milk action website will tell you more.

In addition they are a conglomerate, but I think that they are worse because the brands that they own, not all of them have the Nestle symbol, this isn't a law however, but if you are trying to boycott them, it makes it very hard. I know at one stage they owned several different french mineral water companies. I believe that they had to sell some of them, I also believe that they still own Perrier.

I've just checked and yes they do:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/pages/products.h tml


I have not consiously bought a nestle product in the last 2 years or so. I admit to occasionally eating some when I have been weak, but I'm pretty sure I haven't paid myself.

What makes it even easier for me to hate them is that they bought out the british confectioners: Rowntrees.
Grrr - I used to love fruit pastilles, and now I cannot eat them.
Yorkie Bars - oh how I long for them. I settle for American Hard gums and Dairy milk, but its not the same.

To sum up
I hate monopolies because they had to play dirty tricks to get there, and they play more dirty tricks to stay there. It seems that when they get to be that size they loose all sense of morality.
Unfortunately there is little I can do, there will always be monopolies and maybe, just maybe, the alternative (to monopolies) is worse?

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