Gates Testifies in Antitrust Suit

teamhasnoi writes "Bill Gates is testifying today in the Microsoft antitrust case. Here's the 5 page executive summary (pdf) and here's the 163-page full version (1.1 MB pdf). Bill waxes on about the early days, talks about .NET, xml, and why Microsoft should not be penalized for its role as 800 lb. Gorilla. (Developers, Developers, Developers)" Other readers point to the BBC story on Gates' testimony, as well as a similar one at Yahoo!.

Comments

From the horse's arse...

[hendridm]

There is an HTML version of the 163-page version on Microsoft's web site.

Throttling MS would hardly destroy the "ecosystem"

[elflet]

Gates' testimony basically comes down to if we can't have everything, all we built will crumble to dust. That would make many /.-ers happy, but it's unlikely to happen.

Look at Everett Rogers' work on the diffusion of innovations. Basically, once an innovation has been picked up by about 25% of the available market, network effects (people talking to each other) take over and adoption becomes virtually unstoppable. Just the use of MS Office gives Windows a thoroughly entrenched position.

Can MS be dislodged? Let's say that the various *NIX factions get organized enough to make a serious run at displacing MS Windows. Rogers lists 5 conditions that are required for an innovation to be successful, and they place alternate operating systems at a disadvantage (definitions from Rogers' site, italicized comments mine):

1. Relative advantage: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes. Unless an alternative can show a substantial increase in uptime, a far more attractive UI, and seamless installation, it won't play in the mass market.
2. Compatibility: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters. It has to run MS Office and whatever motley collection of apps people have gathered over the years.
3. Complexity: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use. Self-explanatory.
4. Trialability: the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis. OK, Windows fails this too -- but people don't even know there's an alternative to be tried. Where's the *NIX equivalent of AOL's "1000 free hours" preview?
5. Observability: the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others. If you adopt *NIX, how will this improve your life in ways that are clearly visible to others, including (and especially) non-techies?

So, anyone want to make Gates' nightmares come true?

Re:The remedies suck

[pmz]

...from MS to Redhat to Sun, everyone bundles, is forced to, or goes out of business because that's what the customer wants.

However, the manner in which companies do the bundling varies widely. Take Solaris, for example.

Sun hides nothing when it bundles software and gives credit where it is due. They do this with Apache, Perl, Java, X Windows, and the Berkeley UNIX compatibility tools, for example. The user is never forced to use these tools, but they certainly may choose to. The only component of Solaris a person is really forced to use is the kernel. Otherwise, Solaris is very modular allowing the user to pick and choose pretty much everything else.

The same is true for Linux and the free BSDs, as well. This is not true of Windows.

The difference between Microsoft and everyone else is that Microsoft is arrogant, imposing, and rude towards its customers. Microsoft has lost the notion of working for the customers, which is why more and more people are turning away from Microsoft every day.

Companies should be bending over backwards to satisfy their customers, and they should be honest about it, too. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been steadily dropping in rank on my list of companies that have earned my business. I think it will be very soon before Microsoft drops off that list entirely.