End the Microsoft Feud
The new federal judge in the seemingly interminable Microsoft trial urged both sides last week to reach an out-of-court settlement. Or at least to narrow their differences.
Microsoft and the government have everything to gain from a prompt settlement, but the intransigent rhetoric on both sides suggests that they would be the last to realize this. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer arrogantly refuses even to admit that his company is a monopoly, although last month the U.S. Court of Appeals held it was just that and last week the European Union detailed ways in which the company “harmed innovation and restricted consumer choice.”
Just as unreasonable are many of the 18 state attorneys general leading the charge against the big-dog corporation. Rather than trying pragmatically to prevent Microsoft from hurling software competitors out of Windows in the future, the states have been pressing the new judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, as well as the Bush administration, to bar Microsoft from releasing its new operating system.
One cause of this intransigence is that the two sides’ worldviews keep getting further apart. Many of the attorneys general see Microsoft’s decision to tightly bundle many new features into the new Windows XP operating system as a direct defiance of their original lawsuit, which sought to bar Microsoft from bundling just one feature, the Web browser Internet Explorer, into Windows.
As Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Ballmer see it, technology is converging in a way that within a few years will unite gadgets we now see as separate--TVs, palmtop computers, phones and video recorders--in a single super appliance. They see bundling as pro-consumer and their legal foes as morons who simply don’t understand technology.
If the two sides want to avoid another round of courtroom time measured in years, the first move will have to come from Microsoft. Ballmer should agree to license the Windows code to computer makers and even software rivals, allowing them to modify the system to meet their customers’ needs. If Ballmer fails to put possible licensing terms on the negotiating table, then he will leave Judge Kollar-Kotelly with no choice but to dictate terms by ordering compulsory licensing. If Microsoft agreed to allow licensing, it would be up to the state attorneys general to drop their bid to stop Windows XP.
Shuttering Windows XP would help no one. While most computer makers bear little love for Microsoft, they are hoping its new operating system, which requires the copious memory and processor speeds found only in the latest PCs, will help pull them out of their profound sales rut. And with Microsoft about to launch a $1-billion advertising campaign to hawk XP’s new features (such as video conferencing, motion picture editing and interactive gaming), their hopes may be well placed.
Today’s world is different from 1953, when an executive could say that what was good for General Motors was good for America. The Microsofties don’t seem to see that political distinction, and those suing Microsoft are blind in their own ways. It’s time for all concerned to open their eyes and settle this feud.
