The SHo Six-Pack (Part 2 of 6)
The Camel’s Nose is in the Tent –
Government vs. Microsoft
Nothing altered the information landscape during 1999 as did the Department
of Justice’s (DOJ) actions and findings against Microsoft; and nothing will
have more impact than the settlement of that case during the year 2000, if,
in fact, it is settled.
At a simplistic level, Microsoft’s incentive to settle in the short-term on
anything but the most favorable terms is low. We believe Microsoft senses that
a change in administrations may change the climate for settlement. Hence, we
do not anticipate Microsoft settling this case until a) there is a change in
administrations, specifically to a Republican one led by anyone but Orin Hatch,
or 2) it becomes clear that Al Gore will win.
Of course, the millennial effect of DOJ vs. Microsoft will be considerable,
regardless of when and how the case is ultimately settled.
There’s an old adage about what happens once you let a camel get his nose
into the tent; you can’t stop him from wrecking the tent. Regardless of the
ultimate settlement, this case has changed the relationship between the
technology industry and government forever. Historically, the tech industry,
as personified by Silicon Valley, has more or less told the government,
“Just don’t meddle with us.” When Jim Barksdale, Netscape, Sun, Oracle, et.
al. went to the government seeking help against Microsoft, they invited the
camel to stick its nose into the tent. While this may be fine for someone
like Barksdale, who cut his teeth in the highly regulated environment of
AT&T, it will be interesting to watch Sun and Oracle squirm when the camel
starts to snort and spit at them.
Whether or not Microsoft has harmed consumers tends to be a religious
question to many in the technology community. The argument goes that since
Microsoft squashed competition, all sorts of great things didn’t have a
chance to be born. Our view is that this perspective ignores the realties
of what companies like Sun, Apple and Oracle were doing before Microsoft
achieved dominance in the Intel-PC marketplace. Indeed, if Sun had its way,
we could only run $1000-per-seat word processors on Sun hardware. In the
early 1990s Sun started the Sparc-compatible program to promote use of its
technology, ala Intel. However, when companies like Solbourne and Hyundai
had the audacity to clone the Sun workstation and sell it for less, Sun
threatened any channel partner with termination if they sold the clones –
thus effectively killing the Sparc-compatible market and sending companies
like Solbourne into the dumper. Apple has behaved in a similar fashion
relative to PowerComputing.
So while the ABM (Anybody-but-Microsoft) pack is now crowing about Microsoft
getting hammered by the government, they should contemplate the camel’s nose
that will soon be sniffing the sand beneath their Gucci-shod feet.
Part 3 - Extracting the Pound of Flesh –
Global Taxation and Privacy
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