Why the obsession with Microsoft? zdnet.com
Another Nader interview here. No, I don't know the guy, and I've never communicated with him. Some day, we will all be obsessed with Microsoft.
Cheers, Dan.
But there's a bigger question here, and that is: do we want the information highway to be dominated by the closed architecture of Microsoft -- one dominant company. It has a lot of satellite companies under its umbrella, and a lot of partnerships that have further increased concentration in areas like real estate and banking.
I think the answer is no - and it's no for a lot of reasons. One is that Microsoft itself wouldn't have been possible if IBM, after being sued by the Justice Dept. in 1969 for monopolistic practices, didn't decide even before its settlement a few years later to let loose its software instead of continuing bundling its software. And that gave Microsoft a big opportunity to get a foothold and, of course, IBM's probably regretting it ever since.
So we're talking about not just letting a lot of companies innovate and compete and may the best win. We're talking about a company that achieved its dominant position by ruthless and aggressive business practices and not by innovation. If there's one thing agreed upon throughout the software industry, in one area after another whether from Apple or Lotus or whoever, Microsoft was a great copier, and then it became a very powerful marketing aggressor.
The retaliation that Microsoft hurls toward critics or anybody that may be taking a slice of its profits - many of these retaliations are non-meritorious. They have nothing whatsoever to do with simple business competition. They, for example, involve putting off companies from the early release information of the code committees. They involve, for instance, getting other companies to shun companies that might be considered Microsoft-critical. They involve vaporware which never materializes just to keep competitors at bay. They involve threatening to go into a software line and just wipe out the company completely, using predatory prices based on their monopolistic profits of the operating system. So when you add all this up, when you see Microsoft moving from conduit software into content - publishing, encyclopedias and cable TV, you've got a very, very serious problem of monopolistic power in so many directions like this country has never seen. |
