Herb said:
It's not clear if anyone cares that a virtual monopoly supplier closed down a small competitor which had potential to become a real one. Is everyone bought off with a 'free public beta'?
With all undue respect, that's [expletive of choice]. Neither Adobe nor MS are monopolies not even with a qualifier like 'virtual'. Both have lots of competition for every single application they offer. pixmantec have done a superb developing and marketing job over the first year of their existence but have note come close to being a serious contender to Adobe - there's lots of other projects much more interesting from a business point (C1?!).
It's also not a free public beta offered to registered owners of a licence to RSP but the final [download] product; considering the varying guesses what LR will cost (anything from $ 199 to over $ 500) this would be quite a dent if pixmantec was serious competition.
What the EU is doing with MS has nothing to do with breaking a monopoly but all with socialiste economy planning. They are fighting MS over the inclusion of Windows Media Player into their OS. Now, if they hadn't put it in everybody would be griping that Windows does not even offer videao playing capabilities - which Apple does.
Let's see, is MS hindering others to serve users with a video player? Is MS WMP the first and foremost video player? Quicktime (plus iTunes), Real Player, Flash [sic] ... Why isn't anybody suing Apple about their obvious closing off of competitors, not only for their comps and OS but also for the iPod?
Never was a fan of MS [and Adobe] bashers but lately they [the bashers] have become a real nuisance.