"Software publishers: Attack NT, too"
White paper from SPA urges Justice Department
to expand its anti-trust probe of Microsoft
By Will Rodger, Inter@ctive Week
Online
ZDNN
June 19 -The Software Publishers
Association today urged the U.S.
Department of Justice to expand its
antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. to
include charges of monopolization in the
market for high-powered network servers.
Microsoft's white paper.
The Software Publishers Association. Its white
paper is here in
Adobe PDF format.
What do you think about the SPA white paper? Weigh
in
In its paper,
SPA argues that
Microsoft has
exploited
features of
Windows NT
known only to
its developers to
give it an unfair
advantage over
its rivals.
IN A DOCUMENT approved by the trade
group's board this morning, the SPA said
Microsoft's dominance of desktop computer
operating systems will inevitably extend to
nearly all computers connected to the
Internet unless the DOJ moves quickly to stop
many of the company's ongoing business
practices. As with Windows 95 before, the SPA
said Microsoft has deliberately exploited its
near-total monopoly over personal computer
operating systems to force sales of other
products - in this case the Windows NT
network operating system and applications
that run on it.
Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC.
Microsoft, the association said, has
deliberately introduced incompatibilities
between its desktop software and other
companies' server software in order to force
corporate customers to use NT. In turn, the
company has allegedly tried to tie sales of
other products to sales of NT.
"There's no question Microsoft has to
go
beyond Windows 95, but those practices
they've engaged in with NT are predatory,"
SPA President Ken Wasch said.
Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said
the
paper offered little that was new.
"My understanding is we're accused of
doing
such nefarious things as integrating new
features into our server in the same way that
other manufacturers are integrating new
features into their products. NT is opening
up server capabilities to a whole range of
businesses that wouldn't have been able to
use them under the old business model."
The paper "Competition in the Network
Market: The Microsoft Challenge," drew a
sharp retort from Microsoft Chief Operating
Officer Robert Herbold, who criticized the
"SPA's increasing involvement in the
anti-Microsoft campaign currently being waged
in Washington, D.C., by Microsoft's
competitors." The company has posted to its
own Web site a 10-page NT white paper
entitled "Windows NT: Boosting Competition In
Enterprise Computing," designed to counter
the SPA's arguments.
"It is difficult to understand how
this pattern
of behavior is consistent with the SPA's
goals to `promote and strengthen the
industry,'" he said in a letter to the SPA's
Wasch. "Your activities in recent months seem
to have accomplished just the opposite,
dividing the industry and preventing the
organization from focusing on issues
important to the broad membership, such as
intellectual property protection, piracy and
encryption."
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES IN NT
In its paper, SPA argues that
Microsoft has
exploited features of Windows NT known only
to its developers to give it an unfair
advantage over its rivals. By way of example,
the SPA claims developers at Netscape
Communications Corp. were able to equal the
performance of Microsoft Internet server
software designed for the NT operating system
only after they discovered features within NT
not documented elsewhere.
SPA also accused the company of
distributing "service packs," or consumer
updates for its operating systems that often
introduce bugs into other software
developers' products.
In addition, the SPA said, Microsoft
continues to give steep discounts on packages
of programs within its "Back Office" server
software family in order to drive out
competition
The war of the whitepapers is the
latest
chapter in what has become a rocky history
between Microsoft and the SPA. Earlier this
year, the SPA issued a set of eight software
industry principles of competition, many of
which were thinly veiled criticisms of
Microsoft's business practices. More
recently, the SPA joined a new lobbying group
called the Project to Promote Competition and
Innovation in the Digital Age(ProComp), an
alliance of companies and organizations
advocating that antitrust action be taken
against Microsoft.
Sm@rt Reseller's Mary Jo Foley
contributed to this story. |
