Microsoft Diary: Witnesses in Wonderland
Fortune Online
On trial in Washington, Microsoft saw its witnesses get skewered, its video crash, and its prospects for victory take a serious turn for the worse.
Joseph Nocera
Monday, Jan. 25
The afternoon session at the Microsoft antitrust trial has barely begun, and we're already shaking our heads in amazement. Paul Maritz, a top Microsoft executive, has been sworn in and is stoically awaiting the torture he will soon endure: cross-examination by David Boies, the government's chief prosecutor. First, though, we're going to watch a short video. Microsoft is about to screen a product demonstration that will illustrate the sheer fabulousness of competing operating systems. I'm not making this up.
There are moments in this trial when it feels as though we've just gone through the looking glass with Alice--when the world seems so upside down it makes your head hurt. Microsoft's first witness, economist Richard Schmalensee, who finished up this morning, made so many logic-defying claims that he could have doubled as the March Hare. Among other things, Schmalensee claimed that there is no such thing as an operating system market, that browser "market share" is meaningless, that Microsoft lacks market power, and that its accounting system is so rudimentary that it can't break out profit margins for its operating system.
But no moment has been quite so Alice in Wonderland as the one we're about to see. In the real world, of course, Microsoft dismisses competing operating systems as vastly inferior to Windows; just a year ago Maritz himself described Linux, an operating system that until recently was of interest only to hackers, as a "curiosity." But in this forum, the company can't say enough good things about its competitors.
The video begins. "Hello," chirps an effervescent young Microsoft employee. "This is a demonstration of the Caldera OpenLinux operating system." Caldera is a small company that, in a delicious irony, is currently suing Microsoft on antitrust grounds. The young Microsoftie continues: "The demonstration will show that Caldera's operating system provides effective functionality for end users."
Effective functionality? What an understatement that turns out to be! In the next few minutes we see how OpenLinux has a "graphical user interface"--just like Windows! It has a built-in browser--just like Windows! It runs word processing and other key applications--just like Windows! In fact, says our host, sounding more and more like the guy who sells Veg-o-matics on late-night TV, "the Caldera operating system is ... powerful and easy to use."
When several reporters guffaw, three Microsoft people glare at the press section. But we can't help it; listening to a Microsoft employee tout a competitor is funny. "Caldera could do an ad campaign around this," whispers one reporter. "Just think of the punch line: 'Powerful and easy to use' --Microsoft."
Linux ... "Powerful and easy to use." -- Microsoft. |
