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For Immediate Release
Contact: Anti-trust Division, Justice Department, Washington, D.C.
February 26, 1998
(Washington, D.C.) In its most recent investigation into the burgeoning
amateur radio software market, the Department of Justice has notified Larry
D. Tyree of Boring, Oregon, that his software package, TR Log, in the
opinion of the government, is well on its way to creating a monopoly in the
amateur radio contesting software market. With the large amount of revenue
at stake, the justice department feels it is imperative to stop this growing
monopoly before it become too large. These conclusions come after an
exhaustive investigators by 10 anti-trust lawyers from the justice
department.
For further proof of the monopolistic practices of Mr. Tyree, investigators
from the department have monitored an Internet "newsgroup" for information
on the practices of this company. Based on first hand accounts from
investigators, the support level provided by Mr. Tyree was seen to be
"exceeding above the prevailing state of the market". This level of support
is seen as a direct attempt to stifle the competition from any reasonable
chance of competing with TRLog. Mr. Tyree has been asked by investigators to
comply with their attempts to ensure a level playing field in the contest
software market by complying with the following consent decree:
1. Features to TRLog must not be added for at least a period of 10 weeks
after requested by the user community.
2. The program must be made more difficult to use.
3. Several "key" features must be removed from the program including: Morse
code sending ability, free-form contest definition, radio control.
4. Mr. Tyree, or his suspected staff of 100 full-time technical support and
development personnel must endeavor to make their users wait for at least 1
week before responding to any requests for program help. Said persons are
also directed to withhold support responses at least 1 day prior to any
contest. If a large support fee is assessed for each incident, the
pre-contest support may continue.
The justice department feels that by complying with this decree, TRLog will
enable a level playing field for all companies in the amateur radio log and
contest log market. At this time, formal acceptance of this decree by Mr.
Tyree has not been obtained.
As an aside, Mr. Gates, of the Microsoft Corporation, in a Friend of the
Court brief stated "The justice department has finally acted on this company
which had the potential to corrupt the world's software users. Microsoft has
been receiving increasing numbers of calls from customers complaining that
Microsoft's software and support were not up to the level provided by TRLog.
TRLog has created an unrealistic expectation of the software support and
quality a software company should provide especially in the sub $100
software market. I applaud the department's investigators and encourage them
to take a nice, long well-deserved vacation without delay."
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Submissions: trlog@contesting.com
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Feature Wishlist: http://web.jzap.com/n6tr/trwish.html
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