[TriLUG] MS gets smart - strikes deal with universities

[Matt Matthews]

On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 05:46:22PM -0400, Jon Carnes wrote:
> Microsoft has made a deal with University of Nebraska and is looking to
> extend that to other Universities. The university pays a big lump sum
> for a licensing contract and then all the students can purchase
> Microsoft products at Employee prices: WinXP OS for $4.99, Office for
> $9.99, ...

Why isn't this considered "dumping" product onto the market at abnormally low
prices? I thought that in certain circumstances this was illegal. Furthermore,
I would think that an established (by the courts) monopoly would be subject of
even more stringent rules of conduct in the marketplace that would prevent
this.

I saw this story yesterday, and it made me angry. I realize that this
effectively does what some have said would have to happen eventually due to
market pressures (lower costs of the OS and apps to 'reasonable' levels) but 
this seems to be going too far that way: dropping the price to flush the
market of competitors, both free and non-free. Is it good for the consumer?
Short-sightedly, yes, it is because they get stuff they "need" for low prices;
but in the long-term this entrenches an established, unhealthy monopoly even
more.

Regards,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe at math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V