Inflammatory Remarks About Antitrust

These remarks were purged from AcompanyIsProsecutedForBeingAmonopoly

Break 'em up.

Makes me glad BillGates is an American. And TheodoreRoosevelt? was an American President.

RobertCringely? has an interesting remedy: Force MS to sell their development tools business. This makes the "Chinese wall" between the OS and application groups more effective - because the OS people have to feed specs to dev tool companies before the MS apps people can use new OS facilities in their code.

See http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19991118.html

Note the use of the word "force". Cringely's "remedy" amounts to pointing a gun at Bill Gates's head and stealing his most prized possession. A funny way to govern a free nation. Stalin would approve.

I didn't think the USA was a free nation?

"Stealing" is out of the question--there is no question that Microsoft would have to be compensated for such a taking, which would be expensive. It could take years of haggling to arrive at an acceptable monetary settlement. On the other hand, it is doubtful that the development tools business is Bill Gates' most prized possession, and it would cost much less to compensate Microsoft for it than for, say, Windows NT or 2000.

Also, forced sales are common in the US, not just in antitrust actions, but in other areas, as anyone who owns land needed for a public project (or a private project supported by the authorities) can tell you. If that makes the US "unfree" in the previous commentator's eyes, then the US is unfree, and always has been, as the US Constitution, by requiring takings to be compensated, clearly envisages takings.

--MatthewWilbert

''On the other hand, it is doubtful that the development tools business is Bill Gates' most prized possession''

That statement fundamentally misses an important lesson from Microsoft and the Microsoft way. Not to mention business in the software industry in general.

MicrosoftWindows could not have been as successful as it is today without the development component. In fact, an operating system is made entirely for the programmers, not the users. It is the applications that sell the operating system. (and marketing, admittedly)

If it's hard to write applications for a given OS, the OS is fundamentally broken.

MSVisualStudio and MSVisualBasic are the most popular environments in the world, due mostly to their tight integration with Windows. All of MSVS and MSVB competitors have been thoroughly squashed.

Meditate on MSDN for a while, as well.

So, Bill, who isn't stupid, would not be impressed to see his development department taken away from him.

-- SunirShah

I didn't say he would like to have the development tools business sold off, only that it probably isn't his most prized possession, and that it certainly isn't Microsoft's most valuable possession. The presumption is that whoever bought the tools business would continue making tools for Windows, but on a more equal basis with other tool makers, and to make it more likely that these tools would be ported to other environments, so it isn't as if the benefits of having these tools available would suddenly disappear.

Although I doubt this would be a really effective in preventing Microsoft from misusing its monopoly, it has the advantage of being simple (since the tools have never been bundled with Windows, Microsoft can't plausibly claim that they have to be part of the OS) and relatively cheap (since based upon conventional measures the tool business is one of the less-valuable parts of the company) and it doesn't require micromanagement of Microsoft's behavior going forward.

I disagree about an OS being only for the programmers--there are numerous aspects of an OS that directly affect the users for good or ill. It isn't just applications that make Windows a more popular desktop OS than Unix for example, and it isn't just applications that make Unix preferable (I'm not sure about more popular) as a server OS.

--MatthewWilbert

What I find interesting is that Microsoft's tactics appear to be ineffective.

Product quality determines success. IE beat Netscape once it became a significantly better browser. Apache beat Netscape because it was a sigificantly better server.

Office 2000 looks vulnerable to me.

We used Solaris, tried Exchange, and settled on Qube with Linux.

--EricUlevik

Quite right. Microsoft's bullying tactics hurt them in the marketplace. No need to call in the government goons.

Piffle. It hurt them only because it brought the government in. I would be surprised if "sales lost because of bullying tactics" made up 0.5% of "sales made because of bullying tactics". Do you remember when it was almost impossible to buy a PC computer without a Windows license? MarketForces? did nothing to correct this.

Cringely's remedy also has a major incorrect assumption. It does not require a change to development tools for a developer to use new APIs - just an updated set of header files (in the case of C/C++).

Side note, interpret as you wish:

Corel's stock hit $40Cdn a share midday (fell to ~$30Cdn by closing) because RedHat put it on its possible acquisitions list. Corel's stock has climbed out of the gutter (<$3Cdn) to a respectable position on the market in a very short time.

All because of Linux fever.

It may actually turnaround for good this time if Mike doesn't get his butt whopped at the insider trading trial.

Not that I'm really anxious to work for Corel, but it means good things for Ottawa.

-- SunirShah

P.S. How did RedHat get so much market capitalization so quickly?! Geez..

Corel's back to around $15Cdn/share. [Mar 14, 2000]