A rchive Date
[ 10-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Microsoft ]
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[Microsoft: So what if we're a monopoly?
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld, Inter@ctive Week November 5, 1999 7:37 PM PT
A United States District of Columbia judge has now stated unequivocally that he finds Microsoft to be a monopolist. Microsoft's (Nasdaq:MSFT) reaction? So what. The finding by federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that it is a fact that Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the market for Intel-compatible personal computer systems doesn't matter, says Microsoft's general counsel Bill Neukom. "In and of itself, (the finding) does not have any legal consequence to it.'' In a sense, he's right. Microsoft does not have to be worried or ashamed that a federal judge has found the software giant to be a monopoly. Indeed, if it weren't unseemly and wouldn't harm their case, you could almost envision Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Neukom and cohorts wearing company logo T-shirts to work in coming weeks emblazoned with the motto, "A Monopoly - And Proud Of It.''
After all, as chairman Gates was wont to point out Friday night at his news conference in Redmond, this company has spent the last 25 years building new features - such as "support of Internet access'' - into its operating systems; and, helping create a productive, burgeoning industry of thousands of innovative, competing companies that is the envy of economies around the world. If it has a monopoly, it has earned it. And shouldn't hang its head.
Besides, the public position is that competition abounds. Gates and Neukom would have you believe that their position at the center of computing is under severe, constant attack from such would-be rivals as the open software phenomenon called Linux, the Palm operating system from 3Com and whatever the "megalliance'' from Netscape-Sun-and-America Online can gin up, the fact - and here there can be little dispute - is that these are not relevant. They are not, at this point, significant. And Jackson is saying so, in no uncertain terms.
Breathing room
But Microsoft is clinging to the fact that these are only findings. The fact that Jackson says that Microsoft is a monopoly doesn't matter. There have been no conclusions of law and won't be for months. And until then, no one can use this "fact'' against it in a court of law. So if you're Caldera, Blue Mountain Arts, Priceline or anyone else who wants to complain that Microsoft is abusing its market power, you're out of luck - at least for a while.
And that is the crux of why Microsoft is unfazed by being found to be a monopoly. The question, to Neukom and indeed to Jackson, is whether Microsoft has somehow used that monopoly power to commit anticompetitive acts.
That's what we'll see next. But Jackson in his findings also makes it clear, as the states' attorneys general noted, that he believes the company used its monopoly power to squeeze just about any threat to its operating system out of the market, in just about any way it could.
The handwriting is now not just on the wall, it's in the court record. And while Microsoft may not rue the fact that it has been found to be a monopoly, don't be surprised if the tune changes before Jackson ultimately rules; and its monopoly status solidified so that it becomes the foundation for any existing or would-be rival to Microsoft to stage endless claims of anticompetitive behavior in court.
Maybe that explains why Gates, Neukom and the rest of the gang repeatedly said that they were "open minded about solving differences any way we can.'' They're eminently practical.
Settlement, anyone?
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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