from sjmercury.com
Man, oh man, I don't think Microsoft could dig a bigger hole for itself if it used a backhoe. This charade going on in the courtroom of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is doing more damage to the company than its toughest competitors could hope to. (Parenthetical question: When did federal judges join mass murderers and Miss America contestants in being referred to by three names?)
Mind you, I'm no Microsoft hater. I'm not even neutral -- I'm a voluntary user of Windows 95 and other MS products, and by and large, I like them. But Microsoft knows damn well it could comply with the judge's intent (don't shove Internet Explorer down anyone's throat) without compromising the OS, and its transparent efforts to wiggle away by splitting hairs and picking semantic nits only confirms the worst public impressions of the company. Lawyers are used to keeping a straight face through such shenanigans, but I almost feel sorry for the VPs who have to deliver the company line loudly enough to be heard over the snorts of derision. They must be thinking, ''Sheesh, if I wanted this kind of grief, I would have joined a tobacco company.''
My unsolicited advice to Microsoft: This is not where you want to draw the battle line. Give it up. Drop all requirements that force manufacturers to install IE (relatively few will opt out), and spin it this way: ''Microsoft has enough confidence in the quality of its products to allow them to compete in a fair and open marketplace.''
I coulda written that, I'm sort of mellow on Microsoft products these days now that I'm running NT/ntfs. (Though I can't get my dialup script to work, and the debugging instructions are, um, cryptic.) But, I have to repeat my psychobabble take on Bill in this matter, Hank Stamper, from Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion, "Never give an inch". Microsoft must leverage its monopoly! It's standard Microsoft business practice! Let Microsoft be Microsoft!
Cheers, Dan.
P.S. Remember Harvey, WHGIII, "Trey" Gates can always call on WHGII, "Deuce" Gates for legal advice. |
