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too little and too late, SPA takes on Microsoft

this might have been a good action in so much as they are well entrenched, in part on M$' money, as Washington lobbiests. now, with Lessig's role as the court appointed expert suspended by the appeals court until a 21 Apr hearing (submissions due in early April), their voice will be lost in the court action. any action they stimulate with Orrin Hatch's judiciary is a) too late; too slow --at least two years; 3) of little consequence as Congress can not legislate against a specific company --they can legislate by regulation against an industry; and, 4) more importanty, the Appeals Court castrated Johnson's order for the special administrator. still, it is another voice; even though the guidelines are bland, there is no mistalking who the target is; and, in typical M$' fashion they are threatening to drop their membership instead of renewing in August. there are three areas where M$ is exercising monetary influence, even control of the agenda, in legislation or justice: the DOJ action with their crying to Daddy (the appeals court), the SPA guidelines which they intend to force SPA to withdraw, and as part of the closed circle negotiating the rules on intellectual property and trade for the Western Hemisphere free trade zone --closed meetings. as I said: Gate$ makes Cornelius Vanderbilt look like a choir boy. Software group takes on Microsoft By Courtney Macavinta February 2, 1998, 5:05 p.m. PT As the federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft barrels forward, a prominent high-tech trade association tomorrow will release a list of competition principles that strike at the heart of the case and angered the software giant. The Software Publishers Association (SPA) hasn't officially responded to the Justice Department's accusations that Microsoft violated a 1995 consent decree by requiring computer makers to bundle its Internet Explorer browser as a condition of licensing its Windows 95 operating system. But the new guidelines echo some of its smaller members' and the government's complaints regarding Microsoft. The SPA's guidelines come one day after New York State's attorney general said he and ten other state prosecutors subpoenaed Microsoft for evidence of potentially illegal bundling of Windows and Internet software. In addition, the Senate Judiciary Committee and regulatory agencies from Japan and the European Union also are looking into Microsoft's business practices. (See related story) The SPA says it set out to develop the principles to define its role in the fair competition debate, which focuses on its largest member. The SPA has been sought for advice by lawmakers in the past, and it states that the new principles are intended to "guide government officials" in antitrust enforcement. Hitting home with Microsoft foes, the SPA principles state: "Operating systems should not be used to unfairly favor its own products and services, or its favored partners, over those competing vendors. The operating system vendor should not include its own services or products as part of the operating system or user interface unless it gives the same ability to integrate products and services into the operating system to competing vendors." The SPA went on to state that "the tying of certain applications to the sale of other applications has the effect of restraining competition among independent software vendors for the 'virtual shelf space' of [PC makers]." Dominant operating systems also should not "favor Internet content" that it owns or licenses, according to the guidelines. The principles say that healthy competition is reliant on equal access to retail customers. On the other hand, pre-announcing products that do not exist yet, so-called vaporware, stifles competition. Prior to developing the principles, the 1,200-member group surveyed its domestic members. Of the 164 that responded, anticompetitive activity was a top concern. As reported in January, the issue also took the spotlight at two scheduled meetings in Santa Clara, California. The SPA's Government Affairs Committee even met with Joel Klein, the Justice Department's lead attorney in the lawsuit against Microsoft. Microsoft fired back today, calling the SPA's process "short-sighted" and the publication of the principles "self-destructive." The company also quipped that it is undecided on whether it will renew its SPA membership, which expires in August. Although Microsoft was present at the SPA's California meetings last month, so were some of its main competitors, such as Novell, Netscape Communications, Apple Computer, and Oracle Corporation. "It's unfortunate that a handful of Microsoft's competitors are trying to use the SPA to drive a wedge into the software industry. This whole process has been such an obvious attack on Microsoft," Mark Murray, a spokesman for the company, said today. "I think the primary impact of this is that the SPA will be discredited, and that it will weaken their ability to serve as a legitimate voice," he added. The SPA knew its principles would be searched for hidden meaning regarding the Microsoft case, but the group contends it wasn't targeting the company. "The principles are not intended to prescribe remedies that might be applied by federal and state antitrust enforcers to any particular company or set of circumstances," SPA president Ken Wasch said in a statement. "Nor are these principles a call for general regulation of our industry. Rather, the principles reflect an industry consensus of how some business practices promote or impair strong competition." Still, for a group with no regulatory power, the SPA's opinion will hold some weight. The group is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee when it holds hearings on issues of competition in the high-tech industry this year. Moreover, the new principles amend the organization's existing guidelines, which were presented to the Federal Trade Commission during a hearing two years ago. During the hearing, the SPA advised the government to carefully scrutinize companies that allegedly impede others from getting space on retail store shelves. The SPA also took the position that owners of dominant operating systems should release essential technical information to other developers. Both points remain in the new eight-point plan. The remaining SPA competition principles include: Maximize innovation to benefit consumers. The owners of dominant operating systems should license their "interface specifications to any third party for the purposes of developing application software." "Barriers" should not be put up by dominant operating systems that limit consumers' or hardware makers' ability to reconfigure their desktops or utilize any software or online content services. Software vendors "should not intentionally disable, cripple, or otherwise interfere with the intended functionality and execution of other products." Operating systems should not prohibit Web sites from "exploiting the access capabilities of competing products" or force sites to display and promote their products. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQBVAwUBNNc1UbR8UA6T6u61AQHEQwH/cpSHIdQwCR0XVoxqEVya3E15ZBrmI5M8 hln8Dm2qFF39UjsNVLJhp4J4xDnyTdeRCDkGDixzI5qJqDwChz5prw== =sN0q -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----