Mark P
Senior Member
Last year I posted on TF about the nature of our antitrust laws - used to protect competition, not competitors; and that over the years many industrial companies like Xerox ran afoul of these laws. Now, it looks like the Tech companies like Apple (Amazon, FB, and Google) are getting called up by Congress to testify. Tim Cook, Apple'z CEO testifies Monday July 27th and it could affect our boating apps like Navionics and Active Captain.
Here is the antitrust issue in a nutshell: Should Apple be able to: (1) force you (because you bought an iPhone from ATT, Verizon etc), to use only Apple software for your phone? (2) force App Developers like Navionics/Active Captain to pay 30% of purchases made in the App, or (3) force developers to accept only digital Apple Pay for purchases. This activity by Apple sure sounds a lot like what Xerox did to end up in hot water some 50 years ago - using a superior copier product and proprietary maintenance agreements to force customers to buy paper from Xerox - (e.g., no paper from us, no maintenance or parts for you!)
The outcome may matter for boaters - all of these tech titans are doing real well financially, but may well be running afoul of antitrust laws. We could benefit by integration of charts and other navigation software that may occur if Apple's conduct or the conduct of others, is found to be illegal. We'll see.
Here is the antitrust issue in a nutshell: Should Apple be able to: (1) force you (because you bought an iPhone from ATT, Verizon etc), to use only Apple software for your phone? (2) force App Developers like Navionics/Active Captain to pay 30% of purchases made in the App, or (3) force developers to accept only digital Apple Pay for purchases. This activity by Apple sure sounds a lot like what Xerox did to end up in hot water some 50 years ago - using a superior copier product and proprietary maintenance agreements to force customers to buy paper from Xerox - (e.g., no paper from us, no maintenance or parts for you!)
The outcome may matter for boaters - all of these tech titans are doing real well financially, but may well be running afoul of antitrust laws. We could benefit by integration of charts and other navigation software that may occur if Apple's conduct or the conduct of others, is found to be illegal. We'll see.