A Post-Microsoft World

For those of you who've spent years battling and cursing the rapacious, insatiable Microsoft, there had to be a belated satisfaction in seeing a judge brand Bill Gates a monopolistic law-breaker. For everybody else, it's hard to see what, if anything, will change as a result of this surreal conflict between 18th-century laws and institutions and 21st-century economic realities. Truth is, we already live in a post-Microsoft World. (Read more.)

"Good morning, and welcome to the post-Microsoft world." Words many of you have been waiting to hear for years. Yesterday's court ruling didn't end the Microsoft Age, just focused attention on the fact that it's over.

The response to the ruling yesterday, in fact, defined hype. Almost all the significance was symbolic. The findings changed little in the short term, and probably even less in the long run. The most significant and blessed fallout from yesterday may be the loss not of Microsoft, but of a host of those annoying dot.coms flushed out by a NASDAQ mourning a world without Omnipotent Bill. Truth is, we are already living in a post-Microsoft world, and nobody really much cares.

Until the mid-90s, Microsoft was the technological Godhead. Everyone involved with computing or the network hated, used, exploited or feared it. That's no longer true.

The Microsoft Age began to unravel when programmers all over the earth connected and demonstrated that they could create a viable, ethical alternative operating system, sharing freely what was costing everybody else billions. It was accelerated by Bill Gates' profound and distinctly non-visionary arrogance. Anybody who has ever watched TV would have known to settle a long time ago, but Gates must have been reading his own press, thumbing his nose at the one mega-corporation on earth bigger than his.

Had the government intervened a decade ago, when it would really have mattered, yesterday's court ruling might have been as ground-breaking as the pundits and analysts were claiming last night. Who knows what kind of smothered, suppressed and acquired innovation might have been unleashed had Microsoft been reigned in at the height of its abuse and power?

As it was, the decision felt profoundly anti-climactic. It's hard to think of a single major thing on the Net that will change. Bill Gates, it was clear, had given up on this judge, first patronizing, then brazenly lying to him, finally going for the end run, perhaps in the hope that a Republican would shortly take up residence in the White House.

In a few years, after the platoons of lawyers have been as enriched as Microsoft's middle managers, it's possible that computer users will have three or four operating systems to choose from -- if there even are traditional operating systems, sold and downloaded in traditional ways, which seems less likely by the week. But even if there are, it isn't clear that any "remedies," once they are finally contested and sorted out in the courts, will have much meaning. Gates is still trying to come to grips with a political system that is slicker than he is. How odd to see him all over the evening newscasts, practicing his own annoying what-me-worry? spin, proclaiming his company the world's greatest, cheapest and most benevolent technological empowering force.

It seemed pooped and lame. Bill Gates' company hasn't dominated any of the significant technological movements and evolutions of the late 90s: open source, nano-technology, AI, genetic research, hand-held and wireless computing, supercomputers.

For those who've spent years battling and fussing over this rapacious, insatiable company, there was belated satisfaction in seeing a federal judge confirm what a lot of people already knew: Billl Gates is a monopolistic, predatory lawbreaker.

But apart from terrifying high-tech investors for a day or two, it's difficult to discern a single significant outcome from yesterday's decision, a single reality likely to change for people who use computers, the Net or the Web. The pundits couldn't even agree whether Microsoft would be more of a menace broken up or left alone. And the hysteria about lawsuits was laughable. Microsoft has a big enough legal budget to tie up class-action lawsuits for years, and its insurance company is already putting aside billions to start drawing interest for the inevitable day when the settlements must be paid.

Yesterday brought the odd spectacle of 21st-century economic problem confronted by a century-old law (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) being deployed by a 225-year-old institution (the federal judiciary) and analyzed by an ancient information structure (the news media). All this was also being trumpeted endlessly by a federal bureaucracy eager to appear to curb the unchecked power of run-amok corporations, when it's far from clear it will ultimately even be able to curb one.

Perhaps the post-Microsoft world began between when Linus Torvald began his software experiment and Judge Jackson's eerily retro ruling yesterday. Why eerie? Because it pitted a string of l9th-century laws and institutions against a 21st-century economic system. And the antiquarians really thought they had won.

When all is said and done, many of the people reading, working on and joining this site had a hell of a lot more to do with this than those Justice Department pols falling all over one another yesterday to get their pusses in front of the TV cameras, trying to convince the world that they were out there fighting for the little guy.

Comments

Outdated thinking

[Phaid]

You're right, Jon, we already live in a post-microsoft world. But not in the way you seem to think.

On the one hand, the breakup of Microsoft is largely irrelevant. Microsoft's success in the world of operating systems has peaked. Windows 2000 is the beginning of the end ; its mediocre performance and its failure to establish a strong presence in the server market means that MS will never own the enterprise. And its challengers on the desktop are winning as well ; Microsoft is in retreat on all fronts. And because Microsoft is now a well-established company with stable stock value, a successful career at Microsoft no longer means retiring as a millionaire at age 30. They can't attract the talent they need to keep going. The justice department may well accelerate their decline, but they aren't the cause of it.

On the other hand, you talk of choices between operating systems, etc, etc, and how the world will be all wonderful and happy now that the great beast Microsoft has been slain. Guess again. There's a new sheriff in town, and this time it's got the law on its side and the courts in its pocket. And its name is... the Entertainment Industry. Yes, Microsoft dumbed down computing for the masses and in doing so they reduced the quality of the experience. But they didn't have the millions of dollars of lobbying power that the MPAA, RIAA, and other consortiums of faceless companies have to force their wares down our throats. While Microsoft may have bundled apps in order to kill their competition, the entertainment industry simply gets laws passed to kill theirs.

So we can all jump for joy and celebrate the fact that we can run any operating system we want on our machines. But we're really just kicking the dying giant, while the real enemy creeps up on us from all sides.

What to do about Microsoft

[jht]

I wrote this letter this morning, and submitted it to a couple of newspapers up here in Boston. I don't think that Microsoft needs to be broken up into bits, and if they don't see the benefits of opening their source, I don't think we should be forcing it on them - eventually the marketplace probably will. But they still are dominant, and they use that in an unfair fashion. The letter below is just me taking a whack at how to level the playing field enough to let everyone else back in the game - if we did this and companies still failed to get any traction against Microsoft it'd be their own danged fault. We're not in a post-Microsoft era yet, nor are we likely to be no matter what the outcome of the suit. There's just too much MS out there, and there's really no reason to get rid of it all for most people. Punishments I'd like to see would be on the order of a flogging for every BSOD-causing bug.

Well, the hammer has fallen on Microsoft in an utter anticlimax. On the one hand, Microsoft has used their size, wealth, and clout to squeeze as much competition as possible out of their path, but on the other hand they have built genuinely useful products (flaws and all), and are a key part of the high-tech economy. How do we solve the issues at hand and reconcile these two divergent views of Microsoft? I'd like to put forth my proposal for a remedy here.

First of all, Microsoft should not be broken up. That would simply create a host of smaller companies which would dominate in smaller market segments. Nor should they be fined - that would just enrich the government further and not even put a dent into Microsoft's cash flow.

My solution, however, would deal with this in a more effective fashion.

First, Microsoft would be required to provide full applications support for all competitive platforms (anything with approximately 3% of the total market or more). This would include Macintosh and Linux. Microsoft offers partial support for Macintosh today, with a version of Office that lacks web development or database support. They would be required to move the missing pieces of Office as well. Additionally, they would be required to port to Linux and any OS that met those criteria, with full feature parity and simultaneous releases for all platforms. This would ensure continued support for Microsoft's competition, and give users the freedom to use any platform they wanted. It also would probably increase Microsoft's overall application sales.

Second, require Microsoft to open up all the core API's (programming interfaces) of Windows and Office, and to publicly publish all file formats to their applications. Microsoft would have to publish the information before they, themselves could take advantage of it. This will put developers of applications and add-ins on equal footing with Microsoft without favoring anyone.

Third, allow Microsoft to embed Internet functionality in the operating system (but with the same openness requirement as above). Make Internet Explorer a separate program, though. Move it to the applications group at Microsoft. The same with Windows Media Player (which is trying today to kill off RealNetworks' Real Player and Apple's QuickTime).

Fourth, appoint a judge to oversee this with the authority to intervene at any time, rather than making them wait until a suit is filed. During the three years this case has run, Microsoft succeeded in killing off Netscape, and that was a good deal of the reason the suit was brought in the first place. Don't let it happen again.

If implemented, this would have the effect of giving Microsoft's competition a fair playing field with which they could then succeed or fail on even terms. It will also give Microsoft an opportunity to remain dominant - but force them to play fair in order to do so.

- -Josh Turiel

Ah, But M'soft Still Matters (Unfortunately)

[johnalex]

We may like to think this ruling comes "too little, too late," that the computing world has already outgrown M'soft. Perhaps we have. However, many of us tend to forget that a world exists outside the academic and geek realms: the world of business. In that world, Microsoft still matters.

Go into almost any business nowadays and poll people on their OS's and applications. You'll find Microsoft still controls much of the business world. Macintosh and Linux are far behind. In fact, few businessmen even know about Linux.

I may be returning to the financial industry in a few months; I find out today. I'll be entering a pure Microsoft shop. My first order of business will be turning my personal machine into a dual-boot Linux-WinNT setup. I can do that because I know the alternative exists, and I have the expertise to make the alternative work. I've already told the DP manager I plan to implement a firewall and mail server using Linux. He has no Linux experience. All his PC experience concerns Microsoft OS's and applications. In this industry, he's not alone. Even worse, the DP vendors themselves have adopted wholesale Microsoft back-office and front-office applications - running on Microsoft OS's, of course.

Multiply this company by the multitudes of companies in other industries, and you'll see we're a long way from breaking the shackles of Redmond. And let's not even consider Aunt Minnie at home.

We have a long way to go before Microsoft truly doesn't matter. Hopefully, we'll arrive before this mess finally finishes at the Supreme Court. Then, we'll relish the triumph of knowing the marketplace settled the issue - helped along by the Slashdotters, of course. :-)

Not yet.

[3247]

No, we're not living in a post-Microsoft world yet:

Microsoft products still dominate the personal computing and standard software market:

• The vast majority of desktop computers still run Windows.
• Most software written, especially games, is only available for Windows.
• The most frequent data formats used to exchange documents are thos of MS Office.
• Schools still teach the use of Microsoft products.
• ...

Even if Microsoft is split up in Baby Bills, this won't automatically change MS Office's market share.
Even if the courts rule Microsoft's marketing methods illegal, this does not mean people will stop to buy Microsoft products.
Even if there are other operating systems that you can buy your PC with, you still need software for it.

At the moment, people buy Windows and Office because everyone else uses it too. And vendors write software and hardware drivers because everyone has it.
This won't change that soon only because Microsoft is punished in any way.

What we need are standardized APIs, data formats, etc. that are not tied to a certain software product. As long as eg Windows' API or Office's data formats remains proprietary, nothing will change from today's situation:

• If someone sends you a Word document, it's your problem if FooOffice can't read it. Use MS Office.
• If a game "designed for Windoze" does not run on Wine, that's your problem. Run Windows.
• If there are no drivers for your operating systen, bad luck. Use Windows.

Well, let's see what the punishment for Microsoft will be...

Microsoft is an integral part of our World

[Jerome2003]

I don't know about everyone else, but is becoming very frustrating to pick up the paper and see all of the doomsday articles about Microsoft. First of all, I am a long time Mac loyalist. I grew up throwing darts at pictures of Windows logos and Bill Gates. It made me upset that Microsoft had stomped out Apple from even competing in their level. It inspired me to use that frustration to learn how to program and one day create the tools and technologies that would level the playing field and make the power that Microsoft wields nevermore. This was true for people across the industry. Netscape, Sun, and even alternative OSes like BeOS and Linux fueled their drive on the fact that one day their technologies, their abstraction from the Windows world, would allow consumers to one day be free. This would not have been true if there was not an entity like Microsoft to fight against.

Humans love a fight. It is proven that the most patriotic times in this country and the most productive are when we are at a state of war. Many outlets of the computer industry were fueled in energy and enthusiasm to fight against the software behemouth Microsoft. Would Apple have dumped their entire code base, replacing it with the multi-processing, protected memory, BSD pumping Mach Kernel if Microsoft didn't threaten to the world that NT would be the replacement for UNIX and all other Oses? Would Linus and the elite group of hackers that gravitated to Linux have come home every night after a long day of work to work on the Linux kernel and its surrounding technologies if they weren't fueled by the lack of choices for a decent PC based server and development environment? Would the programmers from Apple and SGI have gotten together to break the status quo and put the speed, media power, and 64-bit database file system into the BeOS if they didn't think the media enthusiasts of the world needed something other than the dominating Windows OS? Would Netscape have open sourced their browser and tried to redesign it from the ground up when they saw they were loosing their ground to the powerful Internet Explorer? I think not. I contend that the alternative operating systems, cross platform applications, and the power driving today's businesses online would not have been if we didn't have the company that everyone loves to hate, Microsoft.

Programmers rallied around the little Microsoft of yesteryear because they were fighting against the giant IBM, breaking the status quo of the mainframe world into the PC world today. Because of this, we are living the benefits of a PC (or Mac) on every desktop. Now programmers are rallying around alternative OSes and Internet technologies that make cross-platform, networked applications a reality. They are trying to break the status quo of Windows everywhere. Think of what benefits this energetic generation of programmers will create! And thank Microsoft for fueling the flames in their hearts that help them to continue fighting towards freedom!