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this echos my feelings on what actions Gates will take in the near term. frankly, the sooner he does it, the better off we will be --this needs to be done before the special master makes his recommendations in May and Gate$' actions will hopefully incense enough people that they will ask for his head on a platter. --the issue in my mind is that the wheels of justice turn too slowly.
Why Bill Gates won By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld December 12, 1997 5:11 PM PST Inter@ctive Week Online Netscape Communications Corp.'s stock finished up 6 percent Friday and Microsoft Corp.'s fell 1.7 percent. While still early in the game, it may be that Netscape's shareholders are applauding U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson too soon. In the meantime, Microsoft's owners may be the ones that should be shaking his hand. Best as these eyes can tell, nothing in the 19-page ruling issued late Thursday says Microsoft can't bundle its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows operating system. Nor does anything in the ruling say Microsoft can't integrate its browser into its operating system. Instead, it says it can't use licensing tactics to achieve a dominance in browsers. "Whether or not the government has correctly defined Microsoft's intentions, the probability that Microsoft will not only continue to reinforce its operating system monopoly by its licensing practices, but might also acquire yet another monopoly in the Internet browser market, is simply too great to tolerate indefinitely until the issue is finally resolved." So, it can't coerce computer makers to license the IE browser as a condition of licensing the Windows operating system, forcing them to install both onto the machines they sell to the public. If "licensing practices'' turns out to be the crux of all this, big deal. That simply gives Jim Barksdale and his jubilant troops a few months in which to try and work new deals with computer makers before Microsoft gets really aggressive. After all, what Judge Jackson has done is given Microsoft a better view of the playing field before it. It clearly will not be able to argue effectively that a product that it also sells as a stand-alone product to PC users can be considered an "integral element'' of the machine's operating system. Duh. So, now, if you're in Bill Gates' typically ultra-aggressive shoes, does this slow you down? No, it could speed you up. You simply come out with your fully integrated operating system, where the features of the browser are built-in essentials. You dissipate demand for the browser as a separate product. Of course, this puts, as SoftLetter publisher Jeffrey Tarter puts it, "tremendous pressure on them [Microsoft] to integrate the products fully, so there's no question that IE is not a separate product.'' But, if you're Mr. Bill with a 90 percent share of the desktop operating system market, isn't that the goal anyway? As soon as you release Windows 98, you simply stop selling IE as an independent product. Cede, for a while anyway, the Unix and Mac markets to Netscape. And then see whether the market does marginalize the market for an independent product called a browser - where there already are no margins today. Then, to keep up with Netscape's "high-performance'' browser (which you start to call a "utility"), you simply update your operating system more often. Windows June, perhaps? Microsoft simply achieves, over a longer period of time, the dominance it sought anyway. Only the clock starts ticking sooner than if it had left IE as an independent product. Computer makers are not going to stop providing their customers with an operating system. The Department of Justice and Microsoft's Silicon Valley opponents, of course, will try to push the point that browsers must stay separate. But it's unclear how strong the legal lineage is behind the idea that once a product is an independent product, it always must stay an independent product. If you're Bill Gates, do you sit back and wait to see how this issue resolves itself in court? Or do you push down the pedal in the marketplace. You'd have to believe he's shown his inclination many times in the past. And his shareholders count themselves the beneficiaries. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNJfkD7R8UA6T6u61AQFTTAH9Fh/Mp/QluofgTSebYMRTz+t5eie3KEu6 3xM7nC7SPAUZPA0z4mlrWkdnKm+IPwRGqWbCDo/cAO0bnFipdDFr6Q== =0Xyp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----