World War 3.0: Microsoft And Its Enemies

jeffy124 submitted to us his review of World War 3.0 Microsoft and Its Enemies. For those of you who just can't get enough of the seemingly endless saga of legal move and countermove, this book follows this case from the beginning. It's about eight months out of date now, but has decent background. World War 3.0 Microsoft And Its Enemies author Ken Auletta pages 397 publisher Random House Publishing rating 4/10 reviewer jeffy124 ISBN 0-375-50366-8 summary A look at the antitrust case United States vs. Microsoft, it's history and the people and corporations involved.

Just in time for a possible settlement in the famous case, this book by Ken Auletta, writer for The New Yorker, takes a look at the case from before it's beginning to almost the end. Written in terms suitable for both the non-techhie and non-lawyer, he doesn't do a good job of maintaining reader interest. Chock full of details that deviate and distract from the main theme of book, it was enough such that this reader hasn't touched the book since school started back in mid-August. (The pending settlement gave me the motivation to do this review)

The book details each person involved in the case, everyone from Justice Dept Prosecutor David Boise to Judge Jackson to good 'ol Billy Gates. Every time a new individual is introduced in the story, the book goes off and tells that person's life story, causing some loss of interest and me asking "Get to the point already!"

However, this biographying of each person does have it's plusses. We see a side of Bill Gates the public is not used to seeing. Auletta describes him as a kid who must have everything go his way or else, and how that attitude worked against him in the infamous videotape. We see the pure intellect of Boise in how he had to be kicked out of Boston College's Law School because he was too smart, and how his performance in the 1970s IBM anti-trust suit applies to his superior execution of the MS case.

The book tells how Microsoft handled the initial problem of Netscape, how Gates orchestrated his company into their predicament of investigation by the Justice Dept. Auletta tells why Netscape Navigator was a "middleware" threat to the Windows platform and why Gates and Microsoft acted the way they did in order to keep Windows as a key piece of the Internet. Key point made was that publicly, Gates appeared to have no interest in the threat Netscape was having against his company while internal memos at the same were telling how MS was going to maintain control.

The case itself is fairly well told. Auletta does a decent job of explaining the Sherman Act and how previous anti-trust cases and decisions would weigh in on this case. Key points for the Justice Dept were the famous videotape of Gates repeatedly denying or not knowing knowledge of something being immediately followed by Boise showing an email sent by Gates; the program by Dr. Ed Felton of Princeton that was able to remove IE from Windows without performance loss vs. the poorly performing Windows presented by MS's developers; the infamous line by an MS Exec to a Netscape Exec "we will cut off your air supply;" and the MS Marketing Exec testimony on how MS restricted partners (like AOL) from advertising Netscape on the same webpage as IE.

Auletta does go off at some point telling about the history of anti-trust cases and how many monopoly cases have not lasted much longer than 13-15 years. He tells that by the end of IBM's anti-trust case, IBM was no longer a monopoly, and other examples. Although I havent reached it yet, the last chapter of the book is titled "Microsoft Loses Even If It Wins."

The chapter that really made me lose interest was the one entitled "Nerds In the Bunker." I was expecting a short tale of how geeks (like us slashdotters) were taking on MS with Linux and other open source and free (as in beer) software. Instead, I got a tale of the "nerds" of the press. A chapter on how the press was factoring into the case. MS was distracting themselves by trying to maintain a good public image while at the same time damaging evidence was repeatedly being presented to Judge Jackson, and the few members of the press lucky enough to get passes for that day.

Overall, if you time available to you and have an interest in this story, it may be worth your time to read the book. Sooner or later I know I'll finish it - Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks are comming :)

Final Note: The book covers the story up to last January, yet mentions the February Court of Appeals hearings that were scheduled at time of publication.

You can purchase World 3.0 at fatbrain. The TOC

Chronology
Prologue: Gilded Voctim
Ch 1: The Prosecutors
Ch 2: Hard Core
Ch 3: The First Pitch
Ch 4: Opening Salvos
Ch 5: The Government's Story
Ch 6: Microsoft's Hole Gets Deeper
Ch 7: Spin
Ch 8: The Real Bill Gates
Ch 9: Children At Play
Ch 10: Elephants and Mice
Ch 11: Micorosft's Witnesses Speak
Ch 12: Nerds In The Bunker
Ch 13: Spring Break
Ch 14: Exile
Ch 15: The Trial's Final Innings
Ch 16: The Trial Pauses, The Planet Doesn't
Ch 17: Judge Jackson's "Facts"
Ch 18: The Mediator
Ch 19: Disconnect: Washington, DC, vs. Redmond, Washington
Ch 20: Davos, Again
Ch 21: So Much Effort, So Little Result
Ch 22: Remedy, And Appeal
Ch 23: Microsoft Loses Even If It Wins
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index

Comments

Microsoft is NOT the enemy

[Chardish]

Why do people constantly perceive Microsoft as being the enemy in situations such as these? For the last time, Microsoft is NOT the enemy in the software wars.

Closed source is our enemy. Narrow-minded software is our enemy. Bad PR and buggy releases is our enemy. Unstable programs is our enemy. Limiting the decisions of users is our enemy. The practice of eliminating competition is our enemy.

Windows is not a BAD operating system, it's simply an inferior one put out by a company obsessed with the prospect of being the only operating system on the market. We don't need to fight Microsoft, we only need to fight that mentality.

My two cents.

-Evan.

Re:Microsoft is NOT the enemy

[Alien54]

We don't need to fight Microsoft, we only need to fight that mentality.

I find this flawed logic. Sort of like:"We should only fight the mentality of violence, but allow those who profiteer of it to continue to do so"

While the minds of people are often changed one at a time, there is a justice action involved which involves getting the criminals off the street. The problem of course, is that there is the most commonly used tactic to change the mind of people is fear. touchy feely psychotherapy can take decades with mixed results, and chemicals ofter merely make people feel good without addressing ethical concerns, which are usually relative to a culture anyhow.

So while the sentiment is perhaps laudable, it is highly ineffective, and may in fact be dangerous because of this.

Re:Microsoft is NOT the enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people constantly perceive Microsoft as being the enemy

Because MS is successful & they are not.

Re:Microsoft is NOT the enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. It's not a war, it's jealousy.

Who will read that book ?

[Vapula]

Most probably, that book will be read by people who are already AGAINST Bill Gates and his (anti-)commercial practices.

The majority of the people don't mind about the trial, the MS background,... as long as they can have their little computer with Windows preinstalled, a quick recovery CD-Rom and their brand new game/MS Office working.

So it will end up in hands of people who already know a lot of what is told and don't have to be shown that Bill Gates is using bad practices.

Too bad... The audience who could have learned something from that book won't probably read it.

Biased?

[Masem]

Looking at the chapter titles, and the bent that the reviewer gives the book, plus other commentary that I've seen on it, I would think that a book that appears to be trying to place the MS antitrust case in an historical, economical, political, and social light would appear to be biased against MS, which isn't a good thing if that was the intent of the book.

I'm certainly not a MS worshiper, but I would think that a reasonable debate on the MS antitrust case would also include looking at what consistitues the OS, applications, interoperability, innovation, etc., all key terms and phases that have been critical during the trial. Again, while I would not doubt that these aren't covered in the book partially, the chapter titles would see to have very little looking at these aspects from the MS side of things.

The title of the book itself suggests that bias further. Despite all that they may have done to this point, Microsoft, while the biggest computer-related company out there, does not yet have control of the entire sandbox thanks to their faulty prediction of the impact of the internet; I'd argue that even with the latest XP and Office XP releases, the internet connectivity/interoperability is still an addition onto their system. As long as you follow standards (most of the time), the internet doesn't care what you run, and thus, Microsoft's powerplays on the OS and other fields are relatively meaningless. If there is a so called WW3, that will be when .NET and Passport are fully realized; they may cause a splintering of the internet where you have MS-blessed clients and services, and otherwise old-time clients and servers. And because that rubs against the entire concept of what the Internet means to most computer techs, that will cause an even bigger tussle than anything that MS could do on the OS side.

Of course, it could end up that .NET and Passport barely make a blip on the Internet radar at all, or actually play fair with the rest of the Internet community, and thus there will be no so-called WW3. And while it's faults during this latest anti-trust trial will have been made public and condemned by antitrust law, those are continually nullified by the openness of the Internet.

Re:Review

[jeffy124]

i wrote the review from the vantagepoint of the audience here on slashdot - the geek viewpoint. That is also how i read the book, as I consider myself a geek.

Given that, I did not find Auletta's biographical analysis of each person contributing much. A few were worth it, as the one about Gates was very revealing to how MS operates and acts as a corporation. But most were overdaunting in needless detail and were distracting from the main theme.

I still have not finished the book. But it doesnt take finishing to know that the book is of poor quality, IMO. If you watch a bad movie, does it take sitting through the entire two hours to realize that? And does it take that entire two hours to tell your friends "dont bother"