All,
The HATCHet man attacks Microsoft. Who's next?
interactive.wsj.com
February 6, 1998 Hatch Says Law Should Prohibit Microsoft From Exploiting Position
This may not be the place to post this but I will anyway. Does anybody else here have a problem with Sen. Hatch's comments and ideas. I certainly do.
I have a difficult problem with thinking of Microsoft as a monopoly. Being the company who developed and markets the predominantly used operating system on PC's doesn't qualify Microsoft for being called a
monopoly. There are other systems out there but most of us don't want to use them because they don't bring as much utility to the table. If they did, they would be operating more PC's than they do.
Another point - using innovative paradigm shifting technologies (IPST) to block off markets to rivals IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. If someone can develop an IPST and the market likes what it sees, then the gold will flow to that someone. What is wrong with that? I have no problem with it. Why does Sen. Hatch?
And who the hell is the Progress and Freedom Foundation, "a conservative think tank"? Progress and Freedom Foundation?? It should rather be called the USSR Foundation in memory of that great bastion of progress and freedom. IMO.
Rant over for tonight. Orwell's 1984 might have been misnamed. 2004 might have been closer to the truth.
Barry
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February 6, 1998
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- In comments aimed squarely at Microsoft Corp.'s ambitious moves into the Internet-software market, Senator Orrin Hatch Thursday said the software behemoth shouldn't be able to exploit
its monopoly to block off markets to rivals with "innovative, paradigm shifting technologies."
The Utah Republican, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for antitrust legislation in the digital industry to focus "on the transition from one technology to the next -- on so-called paradigm or structural shifts in computing." Sen. Hatch was speaking at a conference on Competition, Convergence and the Microsoft Monopoly, sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"On balance, the antitrust machinery in Washington, D.C., probably shouldn't concern itself with every technology market which, at a particular point in time, is dominated by a particular firm to an unusual, even unhealthy extent," Sen. Hatch said.
Sen. Hatch said Microsoft has every right to pursue the Internet and Java markets, but noted a company shouldn't be able to "exploit its existing monopoly to prevent new competitors with innovative, paradigm
shifting technologies, from ever having a fair shot at winning and becoming the new market leader or de facto standard."
The senator's comments come as Microsoft faces a contentious antitrust battle. Last October, the Justice Department claimed that Microsoft violated a 1995 consent decree by requiring personal-computer makers to install Internet Explorer as a condition of using its popular Windows 95 operating system. In December, Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a preliminary injunction ordering Microsoft to stop bundling the browser with Windows 95, an order Microsoft has appealed.
In addition to Sen. Hatch, who plans to hold hearings on Microsoft's competitive practices in the next few months, most of the speakers lined up for Thursday's conference are academics and former antitrust officials known as free-market thinkers.
Sen. Hatch's comments also represent the growing number of politicians, academics and industry officials who are speaking out against Microsoft. Former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole is spearheading an anti-Microsoft lobby that hopes to recruit software companies to speak out against the Redmond, Wash.- based company. The movement has stalled somewhat, mostly because competitors fear retaliation in the marketplace. But industry sources say that over the past two months, many software companies voluntarily have begun turning over voluminous amounts of Microsoft-related competitive-
practice information to the Justice Department. Some of the information raises questions about practices that aren't the focus of the current antitrust case. These include allegations that Microsoft is tying its Windows operating system to favored products and services, and the possible misuse of Microsoft's program to certify that hardware made by other companies is compatible with Windows; some rivals claim Microsoft has blocked products from coming to market.
Earlier this week, the Software Publishers Association, at the urging of members that compete with Microsoft, announced an aggressive new position on unfair marketing tactics -- a move apparently aimed at
Microsoft. In doing so, the association, which represents 1,200 software companies, including Microsoft, probably will be working with the Justice Department.
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