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Congressman Advocates Breaking-Up a Guilty MS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it's-the-baby-bells dept.

Zulu_McDuffy wrote to us with an opinion piece by a Silicon Valley Congressman, Tom Campbell. He says that if "broad liability" was found in the anti-trust suit, the only logical thing to do would be breaking-up the corporation. What do you guys think? Is that the only solution? The alternative is regulation, which no one seems to be interested in doing.

5 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. Breaking up is good to do by JoeFaust · · Score: 4

    I actually think that breaking up Microsoft would be a good thing. As much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft is here to stay. Linux isn't going to kill them anytime soon.

    That being said, I would like to see Microsoft produce some quality applications. They do have some. Visual J++ is my Java IDE of choice, and I'll take IE5 over Netscape any day.

    If the Operating Systems team was separated from the Application team, then maybe they'd stop trying to produce bastard hybrids and focus on one thing at a time. With some massive scope reduction, I think that all the talent at Microsoft could produce some killer apps.




    --Joe

  2. Open file formats by itsjpr · · Score: 3

    A guilty MS should only be required to open the file formats it uses. That's it. Linux will find its place without the help from the DOJ. Anything else the DOJ could do would only hurt other industry players later on.

  3. Breaking up is hard to do.... by Masker · · Score: 3

    How exactly would the split work? Split into major chunks of functionality (OS, compiler, applications, hardware, misc. bits)? I guess that wouldn't be so hard, but to what effect? If MS Office only runs on MS Windows, and Office is the most popular office suite (remember that the Office suite == operating system to naive users), then what does it matter? For development purposes, if the VC++ compiler only generates MS Windows binaries, and MFC is a framework for MS Windows only, then there's no difference. Does it hurt MS financially? That's not the point of the suit, in my mind; we should foster competition, not simply punish MS.

    Besides, where do you split MS' applications between "core OS functionality" and "user application"? They've already tried to blur that line with IE4.0, and I wonder if naive users (and legislators) really know the difference between user-space applications and core OS applications. (Heh, what would be a non-core OS application in *nix? Anything in /usr/*/bin and /opt are "add-ons" and anything in /bin is "core"? =) )

    Nah, it would hurt them worse to do something like force them to port Office and VC++ to other operating systems (Linux, Solaris, BeOS, OS/2...). And to open the source of the OS, so that people can truly see what the hell is going on in there!

    --

    ---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

  4. Don't just break them up by ChrisRijk · · Score: 3
    Just breaking up the company doesn't do a great deal by itself, I'd say, though that does depend on how and where you break them up. I think they should also be forced to openly and publically publish all their APIs, specs, development information, etc well in advance of any product release. MS currently use them to undermine their competition - force others to have over IP (interlectual property) or similar in return, threaten to or delay giving out information etc etc. Also, the price they charge OEMs for Windows should be based only on volume and other 'normal' things, rather than doing it all secretly. For instance, MS threatened to make OEMs pay $5-10 more unless they include IE (pre Windows 98 days), or if they do include any 'competitors' (ie Netscape). They also really screwed IBM over the price for Windows 95 because IBM wanted to continue selling OS/2 and Windows 3.1

    As a little aside, Scott McNealy (Sun CEO) said that he didn't think MS should be broken up - he said it could be like those horror movies where you cut the monster into bits each of which turn into a new monster ^-^. Also, he said that breaking up should only really apply when a company has a total monopoly - there is still competition remaining. Last I heard, Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) was in favour of breaking MS up...

    One problem facing the DoJ is that most of their real options involves something that would cause MS's stock price to collapse. Since the US's stock prices have built up to a massive bubble, this could trigger the bubble to burst. However, that bubble is going to burst sooner or later, and the sooner the better really, though it'd be better if it was gentler...

    And finally, I can't remember the words exactly, but in the DoJ's proposed Findings of Fact, they said (with regards to MS's attack on Netscape) "First they said they did not shoot the victim, then that everybody shot the victim, then that the victim wasn't harmed" ^-^

  5. Might be Doing Microsoft a Favor by IHateEverybody · · Score: 3

    Window NT has turned into an unmanageable mess. WinCE is getting its head handed to it by the PalmPilot. MSN has reinvented itself how many times? Win9x crashes if you lean on it. And don't even get me started about Microsoft Word! Breaking up Microsoft might give the "Baby Bills" a focus that they sorely lack.

    A couple of the MS spawned companies might wind up with a combined value that dwarfs the current Microsoft.

    --
    Does this .sig make my butt look big?