Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearded One who wrote (22571)	2/4/1999 7:58:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Do I detect a whiff of deep doodoo here? On the tape, a narrator noted the difficulty of locating an Internet Web site consumers can use to download updated Windows software--a special feature of Windows 98. The narrator on the videotape said the version of Windows with the disabled browser "is taking a very long time" and pointed to "performance degradation" due to the browser's absence. . . . Microsoft official Tod Nielsen said during the test, four different online connections were made to the Internet at different speeds. That test did not replicate the conditions shown on the videotaped demonstration Microsoft played in court earlier. "Each time we connected we got a different performance," Nielsen said. "It would have been unfair to either side to compare one machine at one rate and another" machine at a different rate, Nielsen said. Nielsen argued, though, that the Internet speed issue was not the primary part of the video demonstration, which showed that the government witness' browser-removal program "doesn't remove Internet Explorer and breaks Windows...The [Internet] performance was an additional thing that it did,'' he said. Murray said the Internet-disabled program was unable to download new software from the Windows Web site and several software programs could not successfully be loaded onto the two machines used in the new test. Murray had told reporters earlier the that new test "resolves once and for all any questions about the reliability of our evidence." Jeez, inconsistent performance under Windows. I though that was all part of the integrity and uniformity thing.

To: Bearded One who wrote (22571)	2/4/1999 11:29:00 PM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

I think Bill Gates should send Michael Devlin a great big fruit basket. I think Devlin might have just salvaged the sinking ship. microsoft.com To give an example, Devlin testifies: One component of our products (Extended Help) uses mshtml.dll to present our customers with an improved Help system. Extended Help uses mshtml.dll if it is present. If it is not present, Extended Help will operate, but in a degraded mode. Individual Rational products (other than Visual Test) which use mshtml.dll generally work in the same manner. With apologies for those more technically savy than I, I would suggest that mshtml.dll (or any other piece of code in Win 98/IE will fall into one of three categories: 1. A DLL or part thereof that is needed for both Windows and for IE; 2. A DLL or part thereof that is needed for Windows but not IE; or 3. A DLL or part thereof that is needed for IE but not Windows. It seems to me that categories 1 and 2 will have to be included in the operating system. Not to include either of these categories in the operating system would, it seems to me, be analogous to making "Windows . . . . artificially rigged to crash if IEXPLORE.EXE were deleted." On the other hand, Category 3 can only go into IE. It is not needed by, and bears no logical relationship to, the underlying OS. It is true that the integrated version of Windows/IE offers consumers no advantages in running Rational's software that consumers cannot obtain by combining IE and Windows on their own. However, it seems to me that the same is not true for Rational, since, unless Windows and IE are combined on all machines, there is no assurance that the DLLs or other code that falls into category 3 will be on all of their customers' Windows machines. Hence, for Rational, "the combination offered by the manufacturer [is] different from what the purchaser could create from the separate products on his own," and "its integrated design offers benefits when compared to a purchaser's combination of corresponding stand-alone functionalities," because, when the consumer is required by the manufacturer to take IE bundled with Windows, this provides the technical benefit of insuring to developers like Rational that all machines that carry Windows will also carry the code needed for IE but not for Windows. This technical benefit is of benefit to ultimate consumers because it allows applications developers such as Rational to offer their products at a lower cost. If IE and Windows were not bundled, Rational would have three choices: 1. Bundle its own versions of the DLLs not included with the OS; 2. Distribute copies of IE with its products; or 3. Market only to users of IE. Each of these alternatives has costs not present when IE and Windows are bundled, and these costs have to be paid by consumers of Rational's products. Thus, those consumers of Microsoft's products that use Rational's software derive a plausible benefit from the integrated whole that they will not derive if users are left to combine IE and Windows on their own. Now, this does not take Microsoft out of the woods. FOr example, if the judge is allowed to weigh the relative benefits among different classes of consumers of IE and Windows, or if the Judge is allowed to weigh this plausible benefit against the anticompetitive effects, then Microsoft loses. If the judge concludes that Microsoft has the ultimate burden of proof, then I think Microsoft loses because I do not believe Devlin's testimony really makes the clear distinctions between the different classes of code I have outlined above. However, if it can be said, and I think it can, that Microsoft has articulated a plausible consumer benefit to integration of IE and Windows that is not present when users combine the product on their own, and if the burden is then placed on DOJ to show that this articulated benefit is pretexual, or non-existent, then I think Microsoft may prevail on this issue because I do not believe DOJ has made the required showing. (Recall that Boies only cross-examined Devlin for about an hour, a testament, I think, to the effectiveness of this witness.) Furthermore, it seems to me that this leads to at least two anomalous results: 1. The code that makes this product integrated is itself not comingled with OS code, and it is that very fact that makes the integration legal. In response, it can be said that, although "'commingling of code ... alone is not sufficient evidence of true integration'" and "[c]ommingling for an anticompetitive purpose (or for no purpose at all) is what we refer to as 'bolting'," there is in fact no requirement in the Appeals opinion that the code be technically comingled or otherwise intertwined for the product to be a legally integrated product. All that is required is that the integrated product be different from and better than what consumers would be able to create by combining its separate components themselves. 2. This rationale will allow any software manufacturer to bundle any application with any operating system as long as the application contains at least some DLL or other code that is not needed for the operating system. My response to that is, "So what?" So, tell me I am wrong and why.