I finally got a chance to read the complete (very eloquent, IMHO) FOF.
One thing that occurs to me is that the Judge is saying that Microsoft's innovations are structured in such a way as to further enhance the barrier to entry (even though they may benefit the consumer). This gives Microsoft the ability to dictate where and how the innovation should occur. (eg., it can choose to support purportedly non-standard extensions to Java).
BillG is saying, on the other hand, that he will not accept any limitations on Microsoft's right to innovate or add more stuff to Windows.
What do people think of the idea that perhaps a settlement can be reached along the lines of the following solution.
Every time Microsoft innovates and releases a new version of Windows, it must auction off the old code to whoever wants to buy it. This gives people out there a platform to innovate on, without having to build a platform from scratch.
If this had been the case, Netscape could have struck an alliance with the purchaser of Windows 95 as soon as Windows 98 came out. Perhaps IBM could have purchased Windows 95.
Under this agreement, everyone would be flat out refused the ability to strike a deal with OEMs where the OEMs can elect to give the OS vendor xxx dollars for every PC sold, regardless of whether the OS was installed on it or not.
I think this may just preserve all the things that Microsoft does so well (integrated solution), while still giving all the cry-baby losers out there a real shot at trying to do something more productive than planting ideas in otherwise unemployable lawyers' heads.
Everyone wins - the consumers always have the choice of going with the MSFT product, which would bring with it a fully integrated solution. They will also have the choice of going with a combined solution offered by other vendors. Other vendors can stop crying - if Navigator is written by oh-so-much-better-engineers than the ones MSFT manages to hire, then by golly, the combination of Win95+Navigator (lets say its called NAV98) would blow away Win98, leaving MSFT in the odd situation that it might have to bid to purchase a license for the NAV98 as soon as NAV2000 comes along. The judge wins, because people can choose to innovate in different areas. For example, if BillG things that Voice Recognition is the next area to invest in, but AOL thinks that handwriting recognition is the next big thing, why then, MSFT will take Win98, add VR to it, and release it as Win2K, while AOL will take Win98, add Handwriting Recognition to it, and call it AOL2K. Now the consumers will have a real choice of a new method for input.
Everyone will be forced to innovate and work hard, including MSFT. Yet, consumers won't have to face a market of fractured software components. |
