The real loser in the Microsoft case? Windows

The judge clearly thinks Microsoft is a special kind of bully.

technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

The real loser in the Microsoft case? Windows

Nov. 14, 1999

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©1999, Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©1999, The Syracuse Newspapers

   Some people just don't get it.
   Take Bill Gates. He still doesn't understand what's going on.
   As you probably know, Gates got very rich turning Microsoft into the company that makes Windows. At one time Windows was just another lousy operating system for personal computers, but before long it became THE lousy operating system for personal computers. Microsoft killed the competition.
   You can disagree with my assessment of Windows. I realize there are a lot of people who like Windows. I even like Windows myself now ands then. But I generally dislike things that crash and waste my time.
   And that's the problem, believe it or not. Windows is badly designed. For all the chitchat you'll hear on TV this week about Bill Gates and Microsoft and the federal lawsuit that's about to knock Microsoft down a couple of pegs, remember this: If Microsoft hadn't been such a bully, Windows would have been a lot better.
   Let me put it this way. If other companies had been able to compete against Microsoft fair and square, Microsoft would have continually improved Windows just to compete. But you know what happens when you don't have any competition.
   So does Bill Gates. When you don't have competition you do whatever you want. Microsoft is the master of that. It wrote the book. Just ask the judge in the federal lawsuit against Microsoft.
   "Most harmful of all," said Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, "is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products."
   Let's put that into regular English. The judge said Microsoft made a big bully out of itself to scare away the competition. The judge also said Microsoft hurt other companies. Bullies usually just make threats, so the judge clearly thinks Microsoft is a special kind of bully.
   Bill Gates went on TV right after the judge's decision to tell everyone that Microsoft was misunderstood. Microsoft is all for innovation, Gates said.
   But the judge had that covered, too.
   "Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft," Jackson said. In other words, Microsoft wants all the innovation to itself. That's what "stifling innovation" means. That's pretty clear.
   Paul Thurrott said it even better than the judge. Thurrott writes a newsletter about Windows called WinInfo. He likes Windows. He knows Microsoft inside and out. He knows who lost the most in these years of bullying, too. You lost. I lost. Consumers lost.
   "All along the way," Thurrott wrote about Microsoft's bullying tactics, "it is the consumers that feel the brunt of this attack, since it is they who suffer as innovation is stifled and options are rubbed out. Anyone who has kept his or her eyes open in the computer industry has known about this for years. Now the whole world knows."
   Now the whole world will get the message. Maybe Bill Gates will, too.