Pay up. Money, after all, is what started this thing, so why not levy some big fines on Microsoft? The company is sitting on such an enormous mountain of cash that it's hard to imagine a pocketbook punishment could be truly painful -- unless the court took the unprecedented step of stripping the company of its entire tens-of-billions reserve. Well, that's one way to fund some new government programs.

Bill, behave yourself! Under so-called "conduct remedies," the government would order Microsoft to stop doing things it's not supposed to be doing -- like using its Windows monopoly to try to build new monopolies in other areas. Trouble is, such behavior is already against the antitrust laws. And the current suit arose because of the failure of a previous "behave yourself" agreement between the government and Microsoft. Each new round of "conduct remedies" seems to give Microsoft another few years to tighten its hold on the marketplace.

The APIs have it. One popular idea is to require Microsoft to "open" or fully publish its APIs -- the "hooks" programmers use to connect pieces of software with one another. Open Microsoft APIs would, theoretically, level the playing field and prevent Microsoft from leveraging its secret knowledge of Windows interfaces to outflank its competitors' products. Trouble is, Microsoft staunchly denies that it has ever done so, and insists that its APIs are already fully open to its licensees. If you believe in the "secret APIs" interpretation of history, then you have no reason to believe Microsoft will be any more forthright under court order.

Use the source, Bill. Another increasingly popular remedy is to make Microsoft publish the full source code to Windows -- allowing programmers of all stripes access to its innards. There's a lot of potential in such an approach, and Microsoft seems to sense that it may get pushed in this direction. So, as recent comments by president Steve Ballmer suggest, it's already devising its own watered-down version of open source to give the company some cover. Just as Microsoft "embraced" Java in order to make a version of it just different enough to confuse the marketplace, the company (like some of its competitors, to be fair) seems to be "embracing" open source by changing the meaning of the term to something it can bend to its will.

Power to the OEMs. OEMs -- "original equipment manufacturers," the computer manufacturers who throw together a processor, a hard drive and a copy of Windows and call it a computer -- have long been at the mercy of Microsoft's complex licensing policies. Considerable evidence in court has shown how Microsoft wields its power over OEMs to reward the compliant and punish the independent-minded. One idea is to put Microsoft's dealings with OEMs on a level field by publishing all its pricing information and contracts. That could rein in some Microsoft abuses -- but it would require vigilance on the government's part.

How much do I hear for this software? Another idea floated at Ralph Nader's second "Appraising Microsoft" conference is to require Microsoft to auction off licenses to Windows to some small number of other companies. Presto! Operating-system competition! Except that software isn't just a license -- it's a whole structure of knowledge and knowledgeable programmers. The ability to sell Windows by itself isn't worth much if you're not in a position to keep developing the software, fixing its bugs and improving its functions.

Nationalize Microsoft. This has actually been proposed by at least one influential columnist. But even the most ardent Microsoft-basher must quail at the prospect of putting the federal bureaucracy in charge of an "essential utility" that's also a piece of software.

Birthing Baby Bills. Breaking up Microsoft is the thermonuclear antitrust remedy, once considered nigh impossible but increasingly the subject of industry chatter. The big question is, which is better -- a vertical or a horizontal breakup? Does it make more sense to divide Microsoft's operating system business, its applications units and its media properties into discrete enterprises -- or to break it up into several different companies, each of which would "inherit" the full portfolio of Microsoft's current intellectual property? Either way, who "gets" Bill Gates? Or if such a breakup should come to pass, would he just take his billions of marbles and go home?

Naturally, the egos in Redmond feel that they have built a wealthy empire on the sweat of their brows -- and the gu'mmint has no right to mess with their success. But the prospect of a decision by Judge Jackson to break up Microsoft might not be such a nightmare for the company, its executives and its investors. Today's Microsoft is a hobbled giant that's facing lawsuits at every turn, losing the interest of its top executives and having a hell of a time getting its most important new product, the Windows NT upgrade known as Windows 2000, out the door.

A federally mandated breakup could be the best thing that ever happened to the company: Look what happened to AT&T. If Microsoft's success truly is a byproduct of a sterling corporate culture, as partisans contend, then propagating that culture in new offshoots that are able to compete with one another can only guarantee a healthy industry. While today's Microsoft has grown so big and rich that its most efficient means of adding new technologies to its product line is to buy whole companies, a crop of lean Baby Bills could become tomorrow's innovators.

There's one argument that just might persuade Redmond's stock option-stoked legions to buy into a breakup of the company. All they have to do is stop thinking about such an outcome as a humiliating legal defeat -- and begin envisioning it as the ultimate stock split.
salon.com | June 2, 1999

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