When Judge Jackson was mulling over how Microsoft should be restrained following his finding that it was monopolistic, the silence from Silicon Valley was deafening. There has been little enthusiasm for splitting up Microsoft, thanks in part to innovation's ideological grip on our culture. All throughout the Microsoft antitrust proceedings, Microsoft's executives and lawyers, along with scores of assorted pundits and market-watchers, chanted in unison that breaking up the company even into two non-competing units would fail to improve (and might cripple) the industry and cheat the public by discouraging innovation. Exactly what would be sacrificed by restructuring Redmond was never well articulated.
If not lies, this was self-serving spin. In any event there's no lack of new information technology (little of which Microsoft has itself originated, truth be told), but there are shortages of time and wisdom to deal with its consequences.
Try to remember the last you noticed a lack of choice or novelty on the Internet. Ask everyone you know the same question. Then ask them how much choice they felt they had in selecting an operating system or a core application the last time they purchased a PC.
Between Windows and Office, Microsoft does own the road that the vast majority of computer users travel each day. They own it courtesy of government-protected copyrights and patents and they charge tolls. Contrast this with Interstate Highway System or the Internet. Consider if you would acquiesce to this degree of monopoly control if it were the airline or automobile industry.
Some say we should be grateful to Microsoft for providing a universal software platform. Yes, we need to evolve common, relevant standards for handling information. Yet so often when high-tech standards have arisen through deliberative public dialogs among dedicated experts, Microsoft has countered with its own versions tailored to increase its competitive advantage: its notion of innovation seems to be to identify a protocol that is on the verge of being standardized and modify it just enough to make everyone do it their way. Specifying rules of the road is another way Microsoft owns the road.
One may be for or against devolving Microsoft, for any number of reasons. But it is interesting to note that no matter where they come down, almost all commentators frame the issue in terms of what course of action will maximize the rate of innovation; rarely is innovation itself considered problematic.
Copyright © 2001 by Geoffrey Dutton. All rights reserved.