The 60 Minutes feature on Gates brought out some valuable insights, not the least of which were the comments of Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett pointed out that Gates was brilliant and was able to grasp very quickly the essence of most any business, even "selling popcorn."
History has shown over and over that one characteristic of truly brilliant people is that they don't understand why they have to follow rules made for others. Were Microsoft not in a dominant position in its market, the laws applying to the behavior the company engages in (as shown by the evidence presented at trial) would recognize this behavior as simply very aggressive competition. It is the very dominance in the industry that is in question, and its impact on consumers, both of which issues were treated in the judge's findings of facts.
My only dispute is that, having used many Microsoft products, including both Windows 95 and Windows 98, I fail to see why Microsoft thinks these products and the accompanying applications are so wonderful. I get mysterious crashes on a regular basis. I find that some of the operations that the user must perform are nothing less than arcane. I personally prefer the smooth, robust, nearly crash free performance of the Macintosh. Evaluating Windows 98 and all its features, I would put it on a par with one of the later versions of Macintosh system 7, which is now superceded by OS 8 and OS 9.
So why isn't MSFT prepared to follow the rules that apply to others? |
