U.S. v. Microsoft FAQ: Court Is Not Where They'd Like to Go Today nytimes.com
Fortunately or unfortunately, I'd guess they'll be spending a lot of time there in years to come, like it or not.
This is the good gray NYT Week in Review wrapup. Not the least inflamatory, balanced to a fault. I know the Microphiles prefer the "balanced" journalism you get from the WSJ, but it's worth keeping up with other points of view. This story runs with a picture of Bill schmoozing it up with Newt, Bill's getting a bit of that well-fed Republican look to him these days.
Hardly the stuff of Court TV, but the case has become an antitrust soap opera.
It's the O.J. trial for the geek set!
What is the principle?
Microsoft says that only the company should determine what goes into its operating system -- the master control program that serves as the central nervous system of a computer. Any slippage from that principle is a step down the road to what Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's chief technology officer, colorfully describes as "the Federal Bureau of Operating Systems."
The bedrock issue in the consent-decree case, says Steven Ballmer, an executive vice president, "is really the fundamental right to innovate."
Sheesh, no wonder that word's bandied about so much here these days. I only used it in passing, but I was really startled how much the new, improved, best of breed, integrated IE4 looked like plain old Nav3 that I run as a matter of course. Except for the graphics switched being buried 3 or 4 panels deep, of course.
The government replies that it has no intention of meddling with software-design decisions; the real issues in the case are less about technology than about the abuse of market power by a dominant company.
Which side are you on? Well, there's this little bit of evidence:
Once it determines that a new company is a threat, Microsoft can deploy its integration strategy with a vengeance. In September 1995, Paul Maritz, the executive in charge of Microsoft's operating-system business, met with executives of Intel Corp., the leading microchip maker. It was a month after Netscape had sold shares to the public and the Internet start-up was suddenly a hot company.
When the discussion turned to Netscape, one Intel executive, who asked not to be identified, recalled Maritz saying: "We are going to cut off their air supply. Everything they're selling, we're going to give away for free." (from nytimes.com
Giving away things for free, to kill a competitor "once and for all", seems, shall we say, uneconomic, but that's a naive view, I know. As for "integration", I stand by my reading that IE is as integrated as Word or Excel, no more, no less. Except perhaps for the issue of calls out of the OS utilities into the IE dll's, I'm sure Microsoft would be willing to put calls into the Word dll's there too, if it was necessary to kill someone else once and for all.
Beyond the consent-decree suit, The Government is also weighing an antitrust suit against Microsoft under the Sherman Act of 1890, but it is as yet undecided about bringing the broader case challenging Microsoft's business practices.
Aw, come on guys. Let Microsoft be Microsoft!
And, in conclusion:
What should antitrust policy toward Microsoft be?
That's a truly complex issue that probably will be debated for years. Robert E. Hall, a professor of economics at Stanford University, has thought a lot about the subject. A respected mainstream economist who is often mentioned as a candidate for a Nobel prize, Hall was an adviser to the Justice Department when the consent decree was negotiated and eventually approved in August 1995.
Hall argues for the benefits of constant scrutiny of Microsoft, given its dominance of a vital industry, but he also argues for careful enforcement. "The big problem in this field is the risk that the cure is worse than the disease," he said.
Practices to prevent, he says, include contracts with outside software developers that stop them from working with Microsoft rivals or licensing deals that exclude competitors. "The challenge is to hold the door open for the next Microsoft," he said, "so there is no way for Microsoft to hold onto its position except to develop great software."
Could those contracts and licensing deals this guy talks about be considered "coercive"? Nah, that couldn't be. I'm sure there's a suitable Microsoftese definition of that word, too. Those contracts and licensing deals were signed by both sides, the relative power imbalance between the two sides is irrelevant.
Anyway, like the O.J. trial, there's plenty of entertainment here as well as serious issues. Like the O.J. trial the outcome may well have nothing in particular to do with any abstract form of justice. As Bill would say, it may all be quite random. Just as we learned a lot about O.J. we wouldn't have known otherwise, we'll learn a lot more about "standard Microsoft business practices". At any rate, the whole thing is likely to last longer, one way or the other.
Cheers, Dan. |
