Microsoft Defense Strategy Starts to Come Into Focus nytimes.com
Or, the shotgun defense explained. Gerald, I'd agree with others that the "integrated capabilities" is not conceding the case to Microsoft. It could just as well mean the "consumers" want "free software" (because they're all a bunch of communists like Slivka, no doubt). More correctly here, they want bundled software they don't have to set up themselves. Since the majority has never set up a thing.
My line on OS integration was always that it was driven more by the air supply operation than any technical imperative or market force. Technically, the more entangled with the core OS kernel the browser is, the more software bloat you get, and the more things suck in general. Anyway, on to the article.
In a day of prickly, detailed cross-examination at Microsoft's antitrust trial, Frederick R. Warren-Boulton, an economist, summed up the Government's case of how the software giant wields its market power in the industry.
"Microsoft cannot point a gun to people's heads," Warren-Boulton said in response to a question from Microsoft's lawyer, "but they can make them an offer they can't refuse."
We've heard that line before, he notes dryly.
It is precisely this broad portrayal of Microsoft as a bullying monopolist that is the main target of Microsoft's defense as it tries to attack every fact, theory and assumption underlying the Government's case.
The cross-examination of Warren-Boulton, the Government's seventh witness, has illuminated the company's defense strategy.
"We're seeing the slow but steady process of cleaning off the mud that has been thrown at Microsoft," said Mark Murray, a Microsoft spokesman. "The facts do not fit the Government's generalizations."
Which leads us back to the old "finding facts" legalism. Somehow, nobody seems to have explained who decides which version of the facts is legally binding to the PR guys. More likely, they prefer to ignore that issue.
. Michael Lacovara, a Microsoft lawyer, tried to get Warren-Boulton to concede that Microsoft's deals with Internet service suppliers, from America Online to small local companies, did not prevent them from distributing other browsers including the Netscape Communications Corporation's Navigator.
Warren-Boulton acknowledged the narrow point but noted that most of the contracts called for the Internet access companies to guarantee that 75 percent or more of their customers use Microsoft's browser.
Lacovara countered by asking whether such exclusive, cross-promotional deals were standard in many industries. "Absent monopoly power," Warren-Boulton replied in a pointed return to his theme that the antitrust rules are different for monopolies, "exclusive-dealing arrangements can be assumed to be benign."
We've heard that one here before too. Microsoft is a natural monopoly, except in this particular context, where the dictionary defense holds. Nobody ever accused Bill and friends of being small minded.
While scoring a few points against Warren-Boulton, Microsoft has been unable to counter a powerful part of his testimony, offered in his written direct testimony and discussed several times while he has been on the stand, that attempts to demonstrate that Microsoft does have monopoly power.
One definition of a monopolist, Warren-Boulton noted, is that he can raise prices for his product with no fear that the price increase will give power to his competitors and cost him market share.
And in fact, Warren-Boulton said, the price Microsoft charges computer makers for Windows has more than doubled in the last seven years, while the overall price of a personal computer has dropped precipitously. Meanwhile, Microsoft's share of the operating system market has steadily increased, so Windows is now installed on 95 percent of computers sold.
Microsoft replies that over those years the company has vastly improved Windows so that when adjusted for performance the price of Windows remains low.
Note that there was no attempt by Microsoft to claim that the price of Microsoft software is falling, as has often been asserted here. Instead, we have the Microsoftese definition of "performance" - featuritis. To repeat another old line, some say that's a problem, not a solution. By the conventional definition of performance, Windows sucks, and it sucks more now than it did 7 years ago. A lot of old lines showed up in yesterday's testimony, it appears.
Cheers, Dan. |
