PC Executives Plead For Windows 98
(04/30/98; 10:04 a.m. ET)
By Stuart Glascock, Computer Reseller News
A large group of computing industry heavyweights has written a letter to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein, deploring the potential negative impacts of a delay in the shipment of Microsoft Windows 98 and suggesting any delay would undercut the holiday and back-to-school sales season.
Dated April 30 and signed by 26 influential business leaders, the letter supports the embattled Redmond, Wash.-based software giant (company profile) and arrives amid increasing reports that a dozen state attorneys general are in the final stages of preparing a joint antitrust action to block the release of Win 98. The upgrade to Win 95 is due to ship to original equipment manufacturers May 15 and expected to be released to retail June 25.
"We are writing to express our strongest possible concern that the release of Windows 98 would be enjoined by government antitrust litigation," the letter says. "We represent PC industry companies employing hundreds of thousands of American workers. Our success depends on the freedom of Microsoft and the rest of the American's personal computer industry to create new and innovative products."
The letter says the authors are not taking a position on "merits of the investigation of Microsoft," but they are strongly urging the public policy officials not to take an action that might delay shipment of the OS upgrade.
"We -- and many other companies in the PC industry -- have spent millions of dollars developing, marketing, and promoting products and services that depend on the on-time launch of Windows 98," the letter says. "The consumer PC business is a seasonal one, and any delay to Windows 98 will undermine our ability to include these products and services in the 'back to school' and holiday demand -- traditionally the industry's strongest sales seasons."
The letter was signed by executives from a large number of leading PC companies, many with strong ties to Microsoft. Among the signers were the heads of some of America's most well-known major resellers, distributors, OEMs, retail chains, and software developers.
Signing the letter were top executives from Advanced Micro Devices, CDW Computers, ChiliSoft, Component Source, Computer City, Dell, Elsinore Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, CompUSA, Corporate Software and Technology, Electronics Boutique, GT Interactive Software, Insight Enterprises, Intel, Merisel, OfficeMax, Sax Software, Sony Electronics, Vanstar, Macromedia, Micron Electronics, Packard Bell NEC, Sheridan Software Systems, Symantec, and Visio.
The rest of the four-paragraph letter is as follows:
"The direct effect on the U.S. economy of a delay of Windows 98 would be considerable: More than 2 million Americans, for instance, develop software that runs on Windows, while a similar number work in the computer-services industry. Millions more work in industries creating new hardware devices, including many Windows 98 supports for the first time.
"But any action against Windows 98 would also have a far broader impact. Businesses would be unable to reap the productivity gains promised by a new generation of software and PCs working in tandem. Consumers, deprived of the right to buy the latest innovative PC operating system -- and therefore the reason to buy new devices and software that work with it -- would keep their cash in their pocketbooks. Interfering with the release of Windows 98 would drag down the entire industry's efforts to deliver value to customers and returns to shareholders.
"Ours is on of the most innovative, competitive, and productive industries in the world. The pace at which new products are launched is breathtaking; new competitors arrive on the scene every day; prices continue to fall. Few industries have come so far, so fast, or have produced so many benefits for consumers and the economy as a whole. Government intervention into the launch of Windows 98 would endanger what we have all worked for -- and harm consumers and the economy, too."
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