Sunday, April 09, 2006

Wal-Mart to Subsidize Competition

So sayeth an article this week in The New York Times. That's bizarre.

Clearly the public relations work of the anti-Wal-Mart faction (of which I number myself) is having some impact when Wal-Mart is giving money and advertising away to competitors. However, I have no illusions that this changes their business model or that Wal-Mart now wants to compete in a healthy economic ecosystem.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Similar to why Microsoft makes Mac compatible software.

12:11 PM  
Blogger Dale Winling said...

Not the same. Micro$oft is penetrating a different market there. They're making money off Mac users. Wal-Mart, in this case, is giving money away.

5:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The current arrangement between Microsoft and Apple dates back to 1997. As part of what amounted to the settlement of lawsuits Apple had filed against Microsoft--and was winning--Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple and promised to continue developing Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and development tools for Mac OS until August 2002."

ZDNet News: January 29, 2002

Are they really there to make money or to prevent an anti-trust lawsuit?

9:06 PM  
Blogger Dale Winling said...

I hadn't realized that (clearly). What of the last 4 years? With Apple's resurgence, it seems like a money-making proposition these days.

10:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

With Apple's resurgence and penetrance of the online-music market, as well as switching to an Intel platform, Microsoft is no longer as willing to continue to develop OS X compatible products, and there is some talk of dropping support for existing Microsoft OS X products (a la Internet Explorer). Not that I like it, just that there are a lot of websites that don't work right with other browsers.

11:17 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home