Of course Microsoft holds monopolies in several crucial areas of desktop computing. For example, it faces no serious competition in the area of operating systems. (Attention Mac, OS/2, and Unix fans: Feel free to send me the usual flames, but it doesn’t matter if your favorite operating system is better then Microsoft-the battle is over).
This hegemony in the world of operating systems comes, in part, because each vers ion of Windows, as with MS-DOS before it, extends the definition of what an opera ting system should include. In the past, Microsoft’s ability to shoehorn utility features into Windows has helped damage many small companies and decimate the mar ket for several popular programs. The introduction of Microsoft Fax sliced and di ced the audience for WinFax. The company’s cable connection did the same for LapL ink and its DriveSpace disk-compression program led Stacker to sue the Redmond gi ant. Added utilities in Windows still haven’t killed the market for Norton Utilit ies, in part because the Symantec program is widely considered greatly superior.
Microsoft’s current legal travails with the U.S. Department of Justice come from the company’s insistence that its Internet browser, Internet Explorer, is an inex tricable feature of its latest and future operating systems. This will be adiffi cult argument to present convincingly. A Windows machine can operate reasonably w ell without any Internet browser (some of us might even get more work done withou t a browser on our machines) and Microsoft’s arch enemy Netscape has built a form idable short-term business-$150 million in sales last quarter-by positioning its browser and server products as add-ons to operating systems, as opposed to integr al elements.
Microsoft’s competitive argument is much more convincing than its legal one. As c onnectivity becomes essential for most business tasks, connecting to the Internet is crucial. Why shouldn’t Microsoft want to capture that market by adding an Int
ernet browser-available for free-to a product that already enjoys a monopoly? Asi de from the public relations disaster, it might be more effective for Microsoft t o just pay the fine and keep the browser in the operating system. After all, a $1 million daily fine wouldn’t bankrupt Bill Gates for at least 130 years.
What’s most telling about Justice’s move against Microsoft is not the substance o f the case-Microsoft is clearly in violation of the decree-but how selective it i s. The department has been prodded along in recent months by representatives of m ajor computer firms who don’t want to see another thriving market get folded behi nd Microsoft’s engulfing wings.
But why the browser? An area in which Microsoft has an even greater existing mono poly than its potential corner on browsers is in the nuts and bolts of Internet c onnectivity, the dialing and connecting protocols that let data pass between your PC and other machines on the Net. Programs like Internet in a Box once provided this, now Microsoft has that ability built in to Windows, effectively killing Int ernet in a Box. Why haven’t computer executives and the Department of Justice gon e after Microsoft for this? Because building the protocols into Windows has made their lives easier. Microsoft’s omnivorous behavior aside, it seems like the comp any’s competitors want to bask in the advantages Microsoft products provide, whil e rejecting the dark side of the company’s market dominion. Apparently, when it’s convenient for Microsoft to be a monopoly, it’s competitors have few complaints. Silicon Valley is full of executives who rail against Microsoft while at the same time praying for the day when Microsoft buys them out, as has been the casewit h Vermeer, VXtreme, NetCarta, Interse, and others. Sometimes it seems like these executives can’t figure out whether they’re supposed to be challenging or courtin g Microsoft. The answer seems to be to do both.
This is why Sun Microsystems’ suit against Microsoft over Java is so ridiculous.Sun wants Java to be like Windows: a de facto standard wholly controlled by Sun.Sun can’t have it both ways. What’s most interesting about this suit is that it r eveals how important Microsoft is to Java’s success. If Microsoft responds to the suit by dropping Java support, Java goes away and, in the long term, so does Sun. Hasn’t Sun considered this %% he problem isn’t only Microsoft anymore. It’s the executives who want a piece f Microsoft’s seemingly limitless supremacy and if they can’t become part of the monopoly, only then do they want to challenge it. Microsoft is clearly acting ina n anticompetitive manner by trying to make its browser and operating systeminext ricable and it should be prevented. But you can’t challenge and court acompany s imultaneously, as many high-tech firms are, and expect to be takenseriously. %%
