Networker: Why prosecute Microsoft?
Why is the US Justice Department engaged in a court battle with Microsoft Corporation, the country's most highly valued company? On November 3, Judge Thomas Jackson attacked Microsoft's conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel and others, stating that Microsoft had also "inflicted collateral harm on consumers".
Microsoft is an expert at making money out of the work of others (the anti-Microsoft camp claims that Microsoft has never invented anything, which is probably true). This includes sabotaging any industry standards it doesn't control and limiting competitors' new product sales by pretending to be about to release its own equivalent.
The latest court ruling puts on record what many people already know: that Microsoft impedes rather than promotes new technology.
People who have purchased a PC may have encountered the terms "16-bit" or "32-bit". This is the size of the data "word" that a computer can process at one time. Spend a couple of hundred dollars on a child's game and you will be buying a 64-bit computer. Spend $2000 on a PC and you will be getting a lower performance 32-bit computer. Why? Because Microsoft doesn't have software ready for a 64-bit computer, so it used its market weight to prevent hardware manufacturer Intel from releasing a 64-bit chip for PCs, which would have benefited other software companies.
What about the role of Microsoft chief and "visionary" Bill Gates? In May, the US Business Week asked him what technology on the horizon would "dramatically change people's lives". A lesser visionary may have imagined a massive growth of literacy and education, unbounded international communication between people, or an unprecedented capacity to respond to major catastrophes. Gates, on the other hand, looked forward to consumers buying a car, TV or dishwasher over the web, and then tracking warrantees via their PC.
Bill Gates doesn't want to think about anything that doesn't make him more money. That's consistent with the approach of Microsoft software. Initiator of the rival (free) Linux operating system Linus Torvalds explained the problem to the Independent earlier this year: Microsoft development "is done for the purpose of making money, rather than for solving technical issues".
Torvalds started on Linux in 1991 because he was tired of Microsoft products crashing on him. Today Microsoft's NT still regularly gives users the "blue screen of death" during simple activity. The promised Windows2000 contains 25 million new lines of computer code (out of a total 30 million lines), so when it is eventually released it is expected to generate problems well into the next century.
But why is the US Justice Department after him? Is this simply a desire by the Clinton administration to lop tall poppies? Or perhaps a small section of the US government bureaucracy trying to enforce archaic anti-trust legislation?
Most US residents realise that the US government, regardless of the party in office, is a voice for big corporations. But there is a certain democracy involved here: the government rules on behalf of the corporations as a whole (roughly speaking). The state machinery is very sensitive to a single company or trust monopolising any industry, and will only allow it under certain conditions. In particular, the US military, hardly a force for democratic ideals, has a history of involvement in anti-trust cases.
Communications lines, computers and the software that run them are the lifeblood of many US industries today. The US ruling class as a whole doesn't want to place its neck in the noose of any one company, no matter how large that company's cadre of lawyers.
@columnauth = By Ian Peters