Corel announces PaintShop Pro X5 - DPReview

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:18:38 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
Eric Stevens wrote:

you can sell an object. Price is a matter of how you position yourself
in the market and in their own separate ways Microsoft and Adobe have
positioned themselves very well. I don't like it but (except for the
early years of Microsoft) I don't blame them.

Would it change your mind if someone like Microsoft broke laws
to reach and hold it's position? Or is that OK (in which case,
what about the Mafia and other organized crome circles)?

Microsoft has broken laws in the course of reaching its position in
the market. That's one of the reasons that I only deal with them under
duress.

And they have been punished, haven't they?
They have paid their debt to society, haven't they?

So you don't blame them for their behaviour any more (hint,
bundling IE and adhesion contracts to stop distributors and
system builders not to put any other browsers on the system
aren't "early years" for Microsoft)?

-Wolfgang

| | Period. A roofer who
| | charges a little old lady $5,000 for a $1,000 job, because
| | she doesn't know any better, or because she's desperate,
| | or because he's the only roofer in town, or for any other
| | reason, is cheating her. He's not "shaping the market".
| | What he's doing is just plain old lying and stealing.
| |
| | So you're saying that the corporations that buy Adobe products are too
| | ignorant and stupid to research the market before they buy?
|
| I guess I'm saying that I wouldn't hire someone with
| your attitude to replace my roof. Thus I avoid Adobe.
|
| Well, now, how much do those stupid corporations that you would not hire
| make in a year, and how much do you make?

You've managed to entirely distort what I'm saying,
twice. What I said was fairly simple: Price gouging is
dishonest and I avoid doing business with dishonest
people. That's partly for my sake and partly as a matter
of principle: If I don't support them they'll be that much
less successful at cheating people, which will benefit both
themselves and others. My view is rooted in a sense that
"virtue is its own reward" and also a sense of citizenship --
that we're all responsible for promoting decency and dignity.

You may not agree with that position. (Indeed, these days
most people have become conditioned to think of themselves
as "consumers" rather than citizens... and consumers are like
cattle: their only "social" duty is to eat.) But you should be
able to at least understand what I'm saying. It's very basic
stuff.

I don't know anything about the "stupid companies" you
keep referring to. You'd have to explain what conversation
you unilaterally decided to have before I could address that.

J. Clarke wrote:
In article , am says...

| Period. A roofer who
| charges a little old lady $5,000 for a $1,000 job, because
| she doesn't know any better, or because she's desperate,
| or because he's the only roofer in town, or for any other
| reason, is cheating her. He's not "shaping the market".
| What he's doing is just plain old lying and stealing.
|
| So you're saying that the corporations that buy Adobe products are too
| ignorant and stupid to research the market before they buy?

I guess I'm saying that I wouldn't hire someone with
your attitude to replace my roof. Thus I avoid Adobe.

Well, now, how much do those stupid corporations that you would not hire
make in a year, and how much do you make?

Be fair: How much does the average employee of those stupid
corporations make in a year?

-Wolfgang

| Would it change your mind if someone like Microsoft broke laws
| to reach and hold it's position? Or is that OK (in which case,
| what about the Mafia and other organized crome circles)?
|
| Microsoft has broken laws in the course of reaching its position in
| the market. That's one of the reasons that I only deal with them under
| duress.

This is becoming a very confusing discussion.
Eric started out equating morality with business
success.

| And they have been punished, haven't they?
| They have paid their debt to society, haven't they?
|

That's a good one.
I live in Massacusetts, where MS lost one of the many
cases against them. (Among those cases was one in
which MS cheated their own employees out of benefits
by calling them part-time workers, at 39.5 hours per
week.) In the Mass. case it turned out that I was entitled
to a $7 rebate, if I could produce the original packaging
and receipt for my Win98 disk, and if I were willing to
fill out the requisite paperwork. As I recall, that was one
of the cases in which MS was allowed to donate software
to schools in lieu of paying the people (everyone) who
didn't file a claim. So their punishment was marketing.

| So you don't blame them for their behaviour any more (hint,
| bundling IE and adhesion contracts to stop distributors and
| system builders not to put any other browsers on the system
| aren't "early years" for Microsoft)?
|

With XP and Product Activation they started threatening
system builders with claims that a PC sold without an OS
is promoting piracy. They were implying that a PC without
Windows is illegal.

In article , am says...

| | Period. A roofer who
| | charges a little old lady $5,000 for a $1,000 job, because
| | she doesn't know any better, or because she's desperate,
| | or because he's the only roofer in town, or for any other
| | reason, is cheating her. He's not "shaping the market".
| | What he's doing is just plain old lying and stealing.
| |
| | So you're saying that the corporations that buy Adobe products are too
| | ignorant and stupid to research the market before they buy?
|
| I guess I'm saying that I wouldn't hire someone with
| your attitude to replace my roof. Thus I avoid Adobe.
|
| Well, now, how much do those stupid corporations that you would not hire
| make in a year, and how much do you make?

You've managed to entirely distort what I'm saying,
twice. What I said was fairly simple: Price gouging is
dishonest and I avoid doing business with dishonest
people.

So let's see, corporation that do business with the "price gougers" make
a lot of money and you don't make much money, so who's being smart and
who's being stupid?

That's partly for my sake and partly as a matter
of principle: If I don't support them they'll be that much
less successful at cheating people, which will benefit both
themselves and others. My view is rooted in a sense that
"virtue is its own reward" and also a sense of citizenship --
that we're all responsible for promoting decency and dignity.

Adobe doesn't particularly want _your_ business so your efforts to
"harm" them by not buying their product are wasted.

You may not agree with that position. (Indeed, these days
most people have become conditioned to think of themselves
as "consumers" rather than citizens... and consumers are like
cattle: their only "social" duty is to eat.) But you should be
able to at least understand what I'm saying. It's very basic
stuff.

I understand what you are asserting. I do not accept that charging the
price that the market will bear for what is positioned as a premium
product is "gouging". By your argument Rolls-Royce and Ferrari are
"gouging" because they charge more for their cars than does Hyundai.

I don't know anything about the "stupid companies" you
keep referring to. You'd have to explain what conversation
you unilaterally decided to have before I could address that.

The "stupid companies" that are the major purchasers of Adobe products
of course. By your logic since they are allowing themselves to be
"gouged" they must be stupid.

On 9/11/2012 9:18 AM, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
PeterN wrote:
On 9/10/2012 2:28 AM, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
PeterN wrote:

Is buying the program a matter of life % death.

Considering that one more or less needs, say, Office, to read
all the stuff customers send one ... it may well be life or death
for a company, and food or depending on charity for an individual.

MS provides free readers.
WordPerfect reads MS files, just fine,

For both you need to buy Windows.
And I doubt WordPerfect can read every Office file.

Microsoft used the Windows monopoly to force people to buy MS-DOS
(instead of any other DOS), using spurious error messages.
This was illegal, as the courts judged.

Now it uses it's file format monopoly to force people to buy
Windows.

-Wolfgang


Yawn!

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/open-docx-files-without-word-2010/

--
Peter

On 9/11/2012 9:24 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| | Period. A roofer who
| | charges a little old lady $5,000 for a $1,000 job, because
| | she doesn't know any better, or because she's desperate,
| | or because he's the only roofer in town, or for any other
| | reason, is cheating her. He's not "shaping the market".
| | What he's doing is just plain old lying and stealing.
| |
| | So you're saying that the corporations that buy Adobe products are too
| | ignorant and stupid to research the market before they buy?
|
| I guess I'm saying that I wouldn't hire someone with
| your attitude to replace my roof. Thus I avoid Adobe.
|
| Well, now, how much do those stupid corporations that you would not hire
| make in a year, and how much do you make?

You've managed to entirely distort what I'm saying,
twice. What I said was fairly simple: Price gouging is
dishonest and I avoid doing business with dishonest
people. That's partly for my sake and partly as a matter
of principle: If I don't support them they'll be that much
less successful at cheating people, which will benefit both
themselves and others. My view is rooted in a sense that
"virtue is its own reward" and also a sense of citizenship --
that we're all responsible for promoting decency and dignity.

You may not agree with that position. (Indeed, these days
most people have become conditioned to think of themselves
as "consumers" rather than citizens... and consumers are like
cattle: their only "social" duty is to eat.) But you should be
able to at least understand what I'm saying. It's very basic
stuff.

I don't know anything about the "stupid companies" you
keep referring to. You'd have to explain what conversation
you unilaterally decided to have before I could address that.



And the factual basis for your statement is?

--
Peter

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:18:41 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

PeterN wrote:
On 9/10/2012 2:28 AM, Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
PeterN wrote:

Is buying the program a matter of life % death.

Considering that one more or less needs, say, Office, to read
all the stuff customers send one ... it may well be life or death
for a company, and food or depending on charity for an individual.

MS provides free readers.
WordPerfect reads MS files, just fine,

For both you need to buy Windows.
And I doubt WordPerfect can read every Office file.

I've used Word Perfect since (1985?) before Word was even conceived
and I've never found a Word file I couldn't open. Mind you, there
could have been some, as I know there have been some Word versions
which later Word versions could not read.

Microsoft used the Windows monopoly to force people to buy MS-DOS
(instead of any other DOS), using spurious error messages.
This was illegal, as the courts judged.

At one stage Microsoft delayed giving Word Perfect the latest version
of Visual Basic (required for the new version of Windows) for six
months at a time when MS was handing it out to other developers.
Consequently Word Perfect had to hit the market with a crippled
version leaving what was the first half-way decent version of Word had
a clear run.

Now it uses it's file format monopoly to force people to buy
Windows.


--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:19:46 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:23:26 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
Eric Stevens wrote:

Of course there is such a thing as price gouging. The point is that if
you sell at too large a margin above cost you leave room for someone
to come in underneath you. What both MS and Adobe have done is so
shape the market it is not possible for someone to easily slip in
underneath them.

What about a company that constantly takes decisions that are
detrimental to it's users and customers but help cementing their
position as a quasi-monopoly?

What would that be called?

Microsoft?

So you say that Microsoft is a bad thing for their users and
consumers?

That's not quite the point I made above but the answer is, more or
less, yes.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:23:59 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:18:38 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
Eric Stevens wrote:

you can sell an object. Price is a matter of how you position yourself
in the market and in their own separate ways Microsoft and Adobe have
positioned themselves very well. I don't like it but (except for the
early years of Microsoft) I don't blame them.

Would it change your mind if someone like Microsoft broke laws
to reach and hold it's position? Or is that OK (in which case,
what about the Mafia and other organized crome circles)?

Microsoft has broken laws in the course of reaching its position in
the market. That's one of the reasons that I only deal with them under
duress.

And they have been punished, haven't they?

Not completely.

They have paid their debt to society, haven't they?

Not completely.

So you don't blame them for their behaviour any more (hint,
bundling IE and adhesion contracts to stop distributors and
system builders not to put any other browsers on the system
aren't "early years" for Microsoft)?

-Wolfgang
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens