Monopoly case reveals how innovation was stifled
As the dust settles on the Microsoft verdict the implications
for corporate IT users are clear - monopolies are bad for
technology. Judge Jackson's ruling showed that the technological
aspect of Microsoft's "predatory behaviour" was far more effective
than the attempt to use pure market muscle.
The case focused on the "browser war" between Netscape and
Internet Explorer. So what? you might ask. Both are now effectively
free and 90% similar anyway.
But it was never about browsers. It was always - and is still -
about operating systems.
To defend Windows, Microsoft had to maintain not just the
product but the whole idea of a proprietory operating system. To do
that it had to stop the emergence of cross-platform interfaces - in
this case, Netscape and Java. And the judge found Microsoft did it
through a combination of technology tweaks and market muscle.
In the battle to defend Internet Explorer, the Judge found,
Microsoft itself introduced glitches and instability into Windows.
With Java, it simply created a Windows implentation that was not
cross-platform and then induced developers "by subterfuge and
barter" to use that language.
What this means is that - for all its protestations about "the
right to innovate" - Microsoft was hampering innovation.
Not just innovation by Sun and AOL, but also your innovation.
How many time-wasting Windows reboots over the last five years were
the result of monopoly-inspired tinkering with the desktop and the
boot sequence?
And it is still being tempted down the monopoly route - bundling
its own video player with new PCs to stave off an open source
rival, and adding proprietory extensions to the Kerberos security
system.
Many IT directors like Microsoft because, while sometimes
clunky, it provides a top-to-bottom solution, a uniform skills pool
and virtual open standards.
But the judgment shows how much we have had to trade for these
benefits. It is not the fact of being tied in to proprietory
software that rankles - it is Microsoft's determination to kill
innovation in the cross-platform alternatives to Windows.
That may have been good enough for the file and print era, and
for the era of closed back-office systems. But it is not good
enough for the era of pervasive computing.
That said, an enforced breakup of Microsoft would be bad for IT
users.
A horizontal split would only work if it could force the
operating system and applications companies to adopt an open source
approach. If Microsoft can be forced to embrace open source short
of that, there would be little point in breakup - and much to lose
from it.
Ultimately, Microsoft's "right to innovate" conflicts not just
with its competitors' rights to do likewise. If defended through
monopoly, it conflicts with the corporate rights to fair trading of
its customers.
An American court has upheld those rights for users across the
globe. Whatever the final remedies the court enforces, the ruling
itself is good news for IT users everywhere.