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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (17984)	3/9/1998 4:39:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Microsoft and Critics Debate Meaning of 'Monopoly' nytimes.com Given my somewhat sardonic impression of the Microsoft view of language, I imagine that the preferred definition is something like monopoly is anything but Windows. But never mind. That other major newspaper weighs in here. For Microsoft, the M-word is no mere matter of semantics. The company's control of the PC-software market, antitrust experts say, has legal and political implications. A dominant company, like Microsoft, is simply not as free under antitrust law to make some of the same deals that were perfectly legal when it was smaller. Or as some wag around here keeps saying, unfair though it may be, antitrust law only applies to monopolies, or something like that. That is why many of the questions posed to Gates in the Senate hearing focused on the details of Microsoft's contracts with PC makers, Internet access companies and Web-site operators. But Microsoft's rise to dominance, some industry analysts say, also means the company must modify its corporate culture and behavior in ways that Gates and his staff do not yet seem fully to grasp. "I view the biggest challenge for Microsoft going forward, now that it's in the position it's in, is changing its culture adequately to no longer consider itself to be the underdog," Stewart Alsop of New Enterprise Associates, a venture-capital firm in San Francisco, told the Judiciary Committee. Or as some guy more into the sarcastic mode of exposition said, "Grow up, Microsoft. ( zdnet.com ). In more detail, Why, for example, isn't the DOJ going after Intel or Cisco? Because they know how to play the game of being a big corporation. Microsoft, on the other hand, still thinks of itself as a PC company that is isolated from Washington politics and the way things are done in the world of the Fortune 500. The view from Redmond is that it won the war, so hands off. That's no different from IBM's view in 1956. But after 40 years of competing with shackles-which allowed companies like Microsoft, Intel and even EDS to get their start-IBM is singing a different tune. Microsoft still thinks and acts the way it always did. It's time for the company to learn to play the good-sport winner rather than the sore loser. It's a big company now. It can continue to grow. But it has to change that victimized attitude and realize grown-ups don't act that way. Back to the NYT: Gates spoke at the New York Public Library on Wednesday, the day after his Senate testimony. "Every competitor with complaints knows the number to call to get taxpayer money to work investigating those complaints," he said. Nathan Myhrvold, the chief technology officer and a member of Microsoft's executive committee, was asked last month whether he thought that there are significant policy and industry issues associated with his company's dominance over a crucial technology. Myhrvold brushed the idea aside. "This is a jealousy-driven thing," he said. "It's about getting us. "Now, of course, we understand limits," Myhrvold said, to explain his company's stance. "And we have worked very hard to understand the law and stay within those legal limits. But the people attacking Microsoft are making this argument that because you are so powerful, the rules should be different for you." Mr. supersonic dinosaur tails is obviously an expert on this particular aspect of the law, just like the financial engineer. The tighter antitrust constraints on dominant companies, says Steven Salop, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, apply mainly to their deals with customers and suppliers. A dominant firm cannot sign contracts with its distributors that require them to buy one product as a condition of getting another product. Cheers, Dan.