Rod: I know, I know... I despise them. I have written about it here, I have at one time had more than my share of anti-MSFT stuff on my page.
I was an OS/2 Ambassador, and watched one of the largest companies in the world get "picked clean" like a buzzard does. I beta tested the original MSN along with the beta Win95. I got removed from MSN for being a troublemaker, I go to their product briefings and want to puke, ... I know... I know ... but you know what?
As uncanny as it may seem, (I know, I saw Elmo's other post by Alsop... but Alsop isn't the mainstream public): THIS is the mainstream public (it REALLY is...):
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
February 2, 1998
America Loves Microsoft
Competitors cry foul. The Justice
Department wants its pound of
flesh. But Fortune's national polls
show America Loves Microsoft
Rick Tetzeli with David Kirkpatrick
As the U.S. got back to business after New
Year's, executives fanned out from Microsoft's
Redmond, Wash., headquarters on a mission of
damage control. Brad Chase, a product
marketing vice president, showed up for lunch
with Fortune reporters in New York toting a
sheaf of papers that listed a series of "talking
points." These were to help Chase and other
executives explain to the media why Microsoft is
standing firm against the U.S. Department of
Justice and Federal District Court Judge
Thomas Penfield Jackson, who in December
enjoined the company from bundling its Internet
Explorer Web browser with its Windows 95
operating system. The first point on the first page
read "Microsoft has done a poor job of
communicating the overall issues." The second
page was headed "Our Poor Communication."
No kidding! Since Attorney General Janet Reno
first filed a complaint about Microsoft's
competitive practices in October, Microsoft has
responded with a foot-in-mouth insouciance
reeking of arrogance. "To heck with Janet
Reno," said executive vice president Steve
Ballmer. The Justice Department is "ill
informed," asserted the company in one court
filing. If it wanted to, said another, Microsoft
had the right to bundle "even a ham sandwich"
into Windows 95.
Needless to say, Microsoft's response has been
panned--even by the company's friends. Says a
PC industry executive: "We thought Microsoft
was in the catbird seat on this issue. But instead
of going to the Department of Justice and
negotiating a quick settlement, they pour acid on
an open wound." Americans don't take kindly to
seeing their government maligned, especially
when the government seems to be doing little
more than protecting that most sacred
right--competition. Surely, Microsoft's outbursts
had hurt its public image.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft officials say that's
just not true. "After the start of these 'activities,'
shall we call them," says chief operating officer
Bob Herbold, "we've achieved the highest
ratings we've ever achieved amongst both the
general population and amongst PC users."
Herbold, who came to Microsoft three years
ago from Procter & Gamble, says the company
checks its image with opinion polls every four
months. "We have," he says, "the support of the
American people."
He's telling the truth.
As part of this package of stories covering
Microsoft's current judicial woes, Fortune
commissioned its own nationwide polls, which
were conducted between Jan. 5 and Jan. 7.
They show that Microsoft does indeed have
immense popular support. Americans love
Microsoft. They love its products. They admire
its CEO. They think the company is innovative.
And more side with Microsoft than with the
Department of Justice in this judicial battle of the
browsers. (Fortune commissioned two polls:
For more on what they reveal, see boxes, and
for the complete results, visit our Website at
fortune.com. For a fuller sense of the
Microsoft charm offensive, read David
Kirkpatrick's interview with Bob Herbold
following this story. And senior writer Jeff
Birnbaum dissects Microsoft's Washington
fumbling in the two pages following the
interview.)
Herbold says his research shows that Americans
admire Microsoft more than any other company.
Again, he may well be speaking truth. In
Fortune's survey of the general public, only
IBM got a more favorable rating, and the
difference between the two companies was
small. Microsoft's products are more highly
regarded than those made by Hewlett-Packard,
often cited as a paragon of engineering. Among
PC owners relying on Microsoft DOS or
Windows, 86% rated their operating system as
"excellent" or "good."
So why, if the company was getting results like
that even after its petulant response to the
authorities, did Microsoft send out Chase,
Herbold, Ballmer, and others on a PR mission
that can best be described as Humble Pie
Week? The day Herbold revealed Microsoft's
survey results to Fortune, he also volunteered
that "we don't always [defend our positions] in
as gracious a way as we can. There are some
statements we've made that we probably never
should have made." This may be the first time
the words "Microsoft" and "gracious" have ever
shared a sentence in a general-interest
publication.
What Herbold knows, and what the data in
Fortune's polls confirm, is that the public's love
for Microsoft isn't entirely unalloyed. A sizable
41% agreed with the statement "Microsoft is a
monopoly"; 35% disagreed, and 24% didn't
know if that's a fair description. Such numbers
could presage trouble, since a very large
majority--fully 80%--also believed that the
Justice Department ought to enforce antitrust
laws.
In the
browser
dispute per
se, however,
the court of
public
opinion
seems
inclined
toward
Microsoft.
Just over half
the people
surveyed by
phone said
they knew
about the
case; of
those, 38% agreed with Microsoft, 28% with
the Justice Department, and 34% were either
neutral or unsure.
Respondents to Fortune's online poll,
meanwhile, were more apt than those in the
telephone survey to label Microsoft a monopoly.
Indeed, heavy online users--those who spend
more than eight hours a week on the
Internet--sided with the Department of Justice in
the browser dispute.
Most Web surfers use a Netscape browser and
presumably feel loyalty to that product. But
heavy users' anti-Microsoft votes take on a bit
more significance when you consider the slew of
knowledgeable industry observers who have
been willing to criticize Microsoft publicly. Says
venture capitalist Ann Winblad, a longtime
confidante of Gates: "They've mishandled their
public relations. If Microsoft turns customers off,
there is a lot of business to be lost." Securities
analyst Bret Rekas of BancAmerica Robertson
Stephens wrote in his online newsletter, "It is
unclear why Microsoft insists on provoking the
Department of Justice and is risking antagonizing
the court with its antics." (For the critical take of
another expert, see Stewart Alsop's An Open
Letter to Bill Gates in this issue's Techno File.)
The bad buzz could hurt Microsoft in
Washington and even start to erode the
popularity evident in polls like Fortune's and
Herbold's. To safeguard its image, Microsoft
has begun walking a public-relations tightrope,
defending its legal position while trying hard not
to further alienate computer users and industry
experts. Says Herbold: "We're concerned about
IT professionals; we're concerned about the
business decision-makers. We don't do research
with those groups regularly, but we're doing
more now."
Microsoft faces a number of challenges as it tries
to assuage the worries of those groups. Gates
has made it clear that having the right to bundle
the company's Web browser with Windows is
something he considers crucial, and he's hired
top legal minds to defend that right. He may very
well have a case. In 1995, Microsoft settled an
antitrust complaint by signing a consent decree in
which it agreed not to engage in predatory
marketing by bundling separate software
products with Windows. But the decree
assumes a degree of product distinctness that
doesn't exist between Windows 95 and Internet
Explorer. The programs have so much in
common that if you remove from a PC equipped
with an up-to-date version of Windows 95 all
the code that Microsoft sells at retail as Internet
Explorer, the computer won't work. And yet
that may be the only remedy that the language of
the consent decree allows the Justice
Department to seek. In other words, by the
letter of the consent decree, Microsoft may be
doing nothing wrong; the Justice Department
may be trying to perform surgery with a
hammer.
Gates' problem is that while Microsoft might be
justified legally, knowledgeable observers will
have a tough time ridding themselves of the
suspicion that the company is flouting the spirit, if
not the letter, of the consent decree. A simple
solution might be for Microsoft and the
government to agree that future versions of
Windows 95 would not automatically display an
Explorer icon on the desktop. (Judge Jackson
demonstrated that removing the icon was
possible even for nontechies.) To access the
Internet, users would then have to decide whose
browser they wanted--maybe Microsoft's, or
maybe Netscape's or some other. In a brief filed
Jan. 9, Microsoft dismissed such a solution,
saying that it is not required under the consent
decree. Given Gates' relentless pursuit of
strategies that make life difficult for archrival
Netscape, it's almost inconceivable that he
would countenance such a deal.
Even close allies of Gates consider his
intransigence a mistake. One executive
compares the browser dispute to Intel's Pentium
debacle in 1994, when the chipmaker tried to
pooh-pooh a flaw in the product. Customers
were outraged; Intel ultimately had to spend
$475 million replacing the chips. Says the
executive, the browser dispute "could absolutely
mushroom into that kind of firestorm."
So far, as the polls make clear, the experts are
wrong--Microsoft hasn't been harmed by its
aggressive rebuttal of Justice. But even if it gets
past its current antitrust woes, its products have
achieved such ubiquity that it may have to
accept increased government scrutiny as a cost
of doing business. If that's the case, Microsoft
can't afford to be perceived as a belligerent
monopolist--not by customers, not by industry
observers, and especially not by the
government.
Heck, it can't even afford to be perceived that
way by the media. The last page of the
company's "talking point" packet read: "Tell us
what we've been doing wrong." Sounds humble.
Sounds nice, even. Don't be fooled. It's just the
sound of Microsoft sharpening its attitude for the
next millennium.
America Loves
Microsoft
Fortune's national
polls show
America Loves
Microsoft.
The View from
Redmond
An interview with
COO Bob Herbold.
Microsoft's
Capital Offense
Refusing to play
by D.C.'s rules.
Alsop on
Infotech
An Open Letter
to Bill Gates
Dear Bill: You are
being completely
random.
Nationwide Poll
Results
Online Poll
Highlights
Microsoft's
Products
Microsoft's
Practices
Poll Methodology
TIME: Target
Microsoft
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Long way to fall, yes ... but where they've taken it thus far, there are way (WAY) too many other companies sleeping with the devil. Those "other" companies won't let it happen. Mark my words!
They're gonna get away with it!
(OJ plays golf every day looking for the killer, right?)
Regards,
Joe...
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