In Technology World, Cynicism Unbound
nytimes.com
I'm as cynical as the next guy, of course. Or maybe not quite as cynical as the friends of
Bill on this matter, I can't quite tell. Mostly, I think if Microsoft is so good for
"consumers" they ought to use their infinite resources to ship an OS that sucks less.
Anyway, on to the article, it hits that point too.
Just how cynical indeed is becoming abundantly clear as the board room and
courtroom dramas play out between Microsoft Corp. and its archrivals --
Netscape Communications Corp., America Online Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
-- and, of course, the U.S. government.
Hard-core cynics find honesty contemptible unless it serves a purpose; the truth
too often makes suckers out of those who practice it. It is an attitude so embedded
in our business culture that feigned ignorance is now an acceptable courtroom
defense.
For example, we shake our heads and tut-tut when we read about the videotaped
deposition in which Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, the most powerful and
feared executive in all of technology, "cannot recall" a single negative e-mail or
its context, even when the wording suggests that he was articulating his ideas,
plans, visions and strategies with great fervor.
Yet few people, in or out of the industry, cried foul when one of Gates' advisers --
a former Justice Department official, no less -- characterized the Gates testimony
as a success because he had refused to concede anything to his questioners, even
when it appeared they had him dead to rights.
And how cynical is it for some industry executives who say they believe in an
unfettered free market -- and who, not coincidentally, reap the secondary benefits
of Microsoft's success -- to argue that Microsoft's dominance has been good for
consumers?
Most economists would argue that what is good for software buyers -- whether
corporate or consumer -- is choice and quality. Microsoft asserts that the market
domination of its Windows operating system insures both, by providing a stable
platform on which developers can build myriad application programs.
Certainly true -- until one then considers that most of Microsoft's vast revenues
derive from its own Windows applications. Few companies are brave enough to
develop products that compete head on with Microsoft's; historically, the odds of
winning that market battle are next to zero.
But choice spurs quality. One could argue, for instance, that the very best
software Microsoft has produced in the last 10 years has been its browser,
Internet Explorer.
Coincidence? Not likely. Internet Explorer is Microsoft's only major consumer
application that has had serious competition -- Netscape's Navigator, which once
dominated its market niche at the 90 percent levels of Microsoft's Windows.
Microsoft joined the battle with a huge advantage: It could afford to give its
browser away free, and did so. When that failed, Microsoft -- in what may
someday be known as one of the greatest cynical acts in industry history --
effectively killed the entire market segment by declaring the browser to be not a
browser but the "HTML engine" of Windows, an inextricable component of its
operating system.
But the deepest cynicism, set forth with great righteousness by Microsoft and its
defenders, is their assertion that, given the opportunity to do so, its competitors
would act exactly as Microsoft has.
Unfortunately, this defense is absolutely true. Strong-arm tactics and cutthroat
behavior have long been considered not just acceptable business practices in
technology, but de rigueur. And all the industry aspires to the stock price and the
market heft of Microsoft -- although none want to be sued by the government, of
course.
But the argument is specious. No other company has the opportunity to act like
Microsoft; it is too late.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft was quick to point to last week's announcement of
America Online's takeover of Netscape as proof that there is plenty of healthy
competition in the industry.
But while consolidation sometimes enhances competition, even a troika as
apparently formidable as the America Online, Netscape and Sun Microsystems
alliance lacks the muscle to nudge Microsoft from its market dominance or to
stem its hegemony in cyberspace.
Even if the alliance were to conquer every new market they envision, the personal
computer market is enormous and still growing, and most new -- and old --
machines will be powered by Microsoft's operating system for many years to
come.
But the merger announcement was a classic tactic for a cynical industry. Many
such announcements have been made over the last decade or so, and despite the
vast media coverage they engender, most do not work and are quietly dismantled
later, when their public relations value has waned.
Such cynicism is perfectly legal, of course, but it demeans everything it touches.
Take nothing at face value, it demands, because everyone has an agenda and
everything has a price. At some point, even principled people start to waver: "If
they can do it, why shouldn't I get mine, too?"
By most accounts, that is where the technology industry is today, a game with few
rules and only brute moves -- jockeying for position, cutting the flanks of the
competition whenever possible. Yet, that game, too, has a price -- but it is a price
of a different, more personal sort.
As Jane Wagner put it so eloquently, "The trouble with the rat race is that even if
you win, you're still a rat."
And when you're Microsoft, you go around whining about how unfair it all is too. If
there's anything worse than a sore loser, it's a sore winner.
|
