Information Appliances: Why They Can't Harm PC Operating Systems Just Yet

3. Information Appliances

22. No operating system designed for a hand-held computer, a “smart” wireless telephone, a television set-top box, or a game console is capable of performing as an adequate operating system for an Intel-compatible PC.

Therefore, in order to adopt a substitute for the Intel-compatible PC operating system from the realm of “information appliances,” a consumer must acquire one or more of these devices in lieu of an Intel-compatible PC system.

23. It is possible that, within the next few years, those consumers who otherwise would use an Intel-compatible PC system solely for storing addresses and schedules, for sending and receiving E-mail, for browsing the Web, and for playing video games might be able to choose a complementary set of information appliances over an Intel-compatible PC system without incurring substantial costs.

To the extent this substitution occurs, though, it will be the result of innovation by the producers of information appliances, and it will occur even if Intel-compatible PC operating systems are priced at the same level that they would be in a competitive market.

More importantly, while some consumers may decide to make do with one or more information appliances in place of an Intel-compatible PC system, the number of these consumers will, for the foreseeable future, remain small in comparison to the number of consumers deciding that they still need an Intel-compatible PC system.

One reason for this is the fact that no single type of information appliance, nor even all types in the aggregate, provides all of the features that most consumers have come to rely on in their PC systems and in the applications that run on them.

Thus, most of those who buy information appliances will do so in addition to, rather than instead of, buying an Intel-compatible PC system.

Not surprisingly, then, sales of PC systems are not expected to suffer on account of the growing consumer interest in information appliances.

It follows that, for the foreseeable future, a firm controlling the licensing of all Intel-compatible PC operating systems could set prices substantially above competitive levels without losing an unacceptable amount of business to information appliances.

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This court case Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ) retrieved on 1-19-2023, from justice.gov is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction.