Market or Monopoly

Patriotism, it is said, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Paying homage to the free market is perhaps the newest refuge. It is always convenient to wrap ourselves in the protective cloak of commonly held values. That is why Microsoft is preaching the free market benefits of innovation and low prices as the Justice Department prepares to bring an anti-trust suit against the computer software giant. However, this is less an argument about the merit of markets and more a question of potentially illegal marketing tactics by Microsoft.

Arguments as to how really innovative Microsoft products are rage constantly. Is Microsoft really creative or is it just skillful at marketing? Does Microsoft rapidly incorporate new technologies into their leading-edge operating systems (DOS and Windows 3.x, 95, 98 and NT) or does it steal features from applications developed by other companies and close them out?

Whether Microsoft is creative as it claims to be is really irrelevant to the Justice Department's lawsuit. Make an enormous leap of faith and assume that Microsoft programmers are bleary-eyed artistic geniuses converting truckloads of pizza and gallons of coffee into millions of lines of errorless code for a bulletproof, rock-stable operating system that leverages the productivity of millions of Americans. Take as an article of faith that Microsoft products are the underpinning of a highly networked corporate computing environment and are totally responsible for the budget surplus. Assume that Microsoft-driven computers increase both test scores and life expectancy. The case against Microsoft does not hinge on the quality of Microsoft products, but focuses on whether Microsoft uses its monopolistic position in desktop operating systems to circumvent competition and forestall future innovation. Arguments about the quality of Microsoft software are a distraction siphoning attention and energy away from the real issues.

Microsoft is notorious for using operating system licensing agreements to compel computer manufacturers to exclude other applications with which Microsoft competes. The most recent case involves the war between Microsoft and Netscape over Internet browsers. In a true free market, the bruising battle over browsers would hinge on the comparative features and abilities of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator.

Justice Department evidence portrays a different picture. Microsoft's senior vice-president, Jim Allchin, did not seem to have head-to-head competition in browser capabilities in mind when he is reported to have said that, "[Windows 98] must be a simple upgrade but most importantly it must be a killer on OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] shipments so that Netscape never gets a chance on these systems." The marketing director for Microsoft, Jonathan Roberts, was not concerned with producing a superior browser when he urged his employees "to really look at why people who get IE [Internet Explorer] with a new machine switch to Navigator and what is being addressed in IE 4.0 to make that difficult."

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic