The big distribution channel they didn't close off was the Internet. DOJ's argument on that one was that downloading browsers is too "difficult" for peon, ignorant consumers, who always take the first browser that's offered to them with their PC's.
Now, we have AOL, who will basically be using using their desktop icon to ram the internet down Microsoft's throat.
You'll have to fill us in on how much foreclosure is too much foreclosure according to anti-trust Law. However, the number one distribution channel for software both in size and ease of use is the purchased computer. Microsoft says this, the DOJ says this, computer geeks who have friends in the real world who don't know how to download software say this--it's not really disputable.
Again, you know the law from a lawyer's perspective but I don't. Millions or tens of millions of people over the past several months were denied Netscape Navigator because Microsoft pressured their OEMs both directly and through integration of IE into Windows. Now I guess the claim is that this is ok since the internet is going to become such a great means of downloading sofware. But here's the problem with that statement, and this is I believe the crucial point:
1) Downloading software even instantaneously creates problems. We can argue about how much problems, but certainly more problems then buying the computer with all the softwre pre-installed by the computer manufacturer who supposedly knows what's going on. Ever here of DLL hell? Doesn't happen with pre-installed software.
Here's the secondary point
2) AOL's service is not going to be a distribution channel for Netscape. They still have to run IE to get onto that desktop. And even if they set it up so that the first thing that happens when you sign on is that they download Netscape, well, see # 1 above.
Microsoft is not claiming the right to "shoot at everyone," except to the same extent as its competitors are allowed to do so. The point is, everyone plays by the same rules, until such time as antitrust law decrees that the "monopolist" should not be allowed to do so.
My (non-lawyerly) interpretation is that a monopoly has *more* abilities than a non-monopoly and that the only constraints are on those extra abilities. Netscape doesn't have the ability to for an OEM to take its browser. Sun can't offer an ISP a place on the Windows desktop if the ISP will run its version of java. Maybe I'm wrong as far as law, but that's my view of a level playing field. Microsoft is the only one in the room with the machine gun, to push the analogy further. |
