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Sayings of Chairman Bill | page 1, 2
And even if somehow the division of Microsoft into two new companies, a Windows firm and an applications firm, could be made to happen so quickly as to render interim conduct remedies irrelevant, it's hard to see how that division would make a huge amount of difference in today's Internet-driven marketplace. Both Office and Windows are profitable but mature businesses. Either of them could be a launching pad for new, Internet-based enterprises. If Microsoft were broken up, then whichever company Gates chose to stick with would doubtless take the lead. As it is, splitting Office from Windows doesn't guarantee any particular new competition in the software industry. Justice and its backers keep suggesting that an unfettered new Office company would develop a version of Office for Linux, instantly giving that server-oriented operating system a whole new legitimacy on the desktop. But is there any evidence that Linux users want Office? I think what they want is Office compatibility: If they could be assured that their favorite Linux applications could read Word and Excel files they probably would have no use for Word and Excel themselves. In other words, what Linux and other rival operating systems really need isn't the Office programs, but access to information about Office, like file formats, that Microsoft currently holds close to its chest. All of which suggests that the government has overlooked the one remedy that could genuinely transform the software marketplace: a requirement that Microsoft publish the source code to its key products, Windows and Office. In one stroke, this would lay bare all APIs, documented or not, and create a level field for all competitors to build new products upon -- establishing the groundwork for a flourishing, competitive new software ecosystem. Microsoft would scream bloody murder, but it is doing so already. On Friday Gates declared that the Justice plan "takes away any incentive for us to do new work by saying that the intellectual property has to be given away to other companies." (This is the quote as reported by the media; on the Microsoft press site the phrase "our work, our way" is substituted for "new work.") Like his other statements, this one is full of bizarre ambiguities: Is he describing the breakup plan itself here, or somehow interpreting the interim conduct remedies as a requirement to give away "intellectual property"? But the only "intellectual property" the conduct remedies mention are the APIs that Microsoft has always insisted it already makes fully public! In any case, asking Microsoft to give away intellectual property is no more or less wrong than any other kind of material fine a company might be charged once it is found to have broken the law. And surely Gates has interpreted the situation upside down: If Microsoft were required to "give away" the information at the heart of its existing monopoly, the company would suddenly have an urgent and overwhelming incentive to "do new work" in order to stay afloat. It would still start with enormous advantages, including more cash than Croesus, a powerful brand name, a vast corps of developers and a corporate leadership that defers to no one in its esteem for its own capabilities. The one thing it would give up is any advantage based on synergistic relationships with its own monopoly products. Wasn't that what the antitrust trial was all about in the first place?
- - - - - - - - - - - - Sound off Related Salon stories All about Microsoft A complete guide to Salon Technology's coverage of Microsoft, Bill Gates and the antitrust trial. Microsplit Justice outlines its plan for two post-Microsoft companies: Office with no Windows, Windows with no Office -- and only one of them gets Gates. Software outlaw roams the streets! So Microsoft broke the law. But while the judges argue among
themselves, the company remains free to stalk new markets.
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