Nothing Underhanded About Microsoft Support
It is interesting that the Los Angeles Times has chosen to repeat allegations [“Pro-Microsoft Ads Were Funded by Software Giant,” Sept. 18] from an article woven out of whole cloth from “internal” (read “stolen”) documents obtained from a source your story neglected to credit, as the New York Times story did: “a Microsoft adversary associated with the computer industry who refused to be further identified.”
The Independent Institute has long acknowledged Microsoft as one of its supporters, including specifying its 7% to 8% level of support at the June 2 news conference for its Open Letter to President Clinton on Antitrust Protectionism. Microsoft is not the largest contributor to the institute, which has a diverse range of members including businesses, foundations, civic organizations and individuals.
It is true that the institute never reveals to its research fellows the sources of any funding, which is a tenet of the non-prejudiced standards of peer-reviewed science and scholarship that the institute follows.
The open letter was organized, written and promoted entirely at the behest of the Independent Institute. Two hundred and forty of the nation’s leading economists and scholars signed the letter, which was subsequently placed as ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post. The ads were paid for out of the institute’s general funds.
In order to solicit continued annual funding in support of publicity for the institute’s findings, I provided Microsoft with a breakdown of costs incurred by the institute for the ads. Rather than underwriting any such specific expenses, however, Microsoft subsequently renewed its annual general, unrestricted support for publicity for the institute’s findings, including publicity for the open letter. There is nothing unusual or “underhanded” about either our solicitation for funding or Microsoft’s providing it.
The open letter was organized as part of the institute’s long-running work in this field, including our newest book, “Winners, Losers and Microsoft,” our second highly regarded book on antitrust. The first, “Antitrust and Monopoly,” was published in a revised edition in 1990, about the time professors [Stan J.] Liebowitz and [Stephen E.] Margolis began work that culminated in “Winners, Losers and Microsoft.” Thus, our research and work in this area predates the Microsoft case, the “browser wars” and even the Internet industry itself. In addition to many other areas, the book draws upon the authors’ systematic research of independent software reviews from computer magazines over the past 15 years.
The one real question that remains is why the New York Times’ source has chosen to come forward with his purloined fragments of records now, 3 1/2 months after our release of the open letter, yet coincidentally just as closing arguments are being made in the Microsoft case and our powerful book is receiving glowing reviews in publications from the Economist to Wired.
When the dust kicked up by these spurious charges is blown away by the above facts, we look forward to a serious discussion of the real issues raised by the open letter and our book: namely, the pervasive existence of corporate welfare and corporate statism, of which antitrust protectionism is one major aspect.
DAVID J. THEROUX
Founder and president
Independent Institute
Oakland
