Once we start to look at it that way, we start to see other commercial factors
creeping into our philosophy. Chief among these is the concept of competition. It
may appear, because our user base is effectively a captive market, that we are
free from the ravages of competition, but this is not so.
Competition arises when there are several suppliers or potential suppliers of the
same thing. Perhaps the users have to get their computer equipment from us,
because it must be connected to the corporate network, which we own and
administrate. That’s a monopoly, not competition. Perhaps the users must always
call the helpdesk for user support, because we’ve stipulated for the purposes of
controlling support costs that all enquiries must be formally logged. So our
helpdesk too is a monopoly. But that’s not the point – this type of monopoly is a
mirage.
First, they certainly must get their kit from us, but that doesn’t stop them reading
the computer magazines and finding that in the real world, computers cost a third
of what we charge for twice the processing power and features. Second, the rule