Microsoft vs. DOJ
June 24, 1998

Competitors Don't Have a Chance
by Rick Aristotle Munarriz (TMF Edible)

Remember that kid on your block who owned the Monopoly game? It was his board, so if you wanted to play, you had to concede that HE was going to be the sports car. You were down to the thimble or the scrappy mutt -- and that was fine. Ownership has its advantages. But what if he insisted on starting every game with a hotel on Boardwalk in his name? What if he wrote up a deed for the Go space and claimed it for himself? You wouldn't pass Go. You wouldn't collect his $200. You would get up and Go actually, because that isn't Monopoly -- it's monopoly.

That is what we have with Bill Gates and Microsoftpoly. A brilliant company earned the right to the playing board, but it has now selfishly claimed the choice real estate in the process.

In a sickening move of nepotism, Windows watchers are being stuck with Microsoft Explorer on their desktop. Netscape is out in the cold, rolling the dice and hoping Baltic Avenue is available.

How can this be fair? If you claim that Microsoft's operating system won the platform war over OS/2 Warp and Mac fair and square, while arguable, I would probably have to agree. Yet the profitable fruits of victory also come with one caveat -- don't abuse success. That is clearly what Microsoft has done. Over the years, the company has taken advantage of its large customer database as a de facto billboard to push proprietary application software, like spreadsheet and word processing programs, to the masses. Some may consider this an honest company cashing in on brand equity to build a supporting product line, but this is no ordinary brand.

From the early days of DOS, Microsoft has fed the country mother's milk from which it never intended you to be weaned. Since computers must interact with one another, it is easy to see how the dominant player would only grow more dominant over time. Quality had nothing to do with this. I can't think of anyone who will argue that the early versions of Windows were any better than the Mac operating system it ripped off at the time. No, it wasn't superiority, it was addiction -- addiction and a captive audience that had to ingest Microsoft wares if it wanted to move forward.

So Windows is water. Tap water. The very fluid that runs through your computer's plumbing. But for a commodity-spewing company, Microsoft Waterworks sure has funny ways of commercializing its byproducts. Your water bill doesn't come with Pepsi coupons. It wouldn't be right. Yet that is what we have here. While a latecomer to the browser wars and with no major advantages over Netscape Navigator, we now find that Internet Explorer is picking fights knowing its big brother will fight them in its place. Netscape has 60% of the market share, but that figure is fading fast and it is all happening because Microsoft is trying to bully the falling leader into obliteration.

Rare are the battles that Microsoft has lost. One such defeat came in the area of online services. Despite the Microsoft name, MSN has never come to challenge America Online's market superiority. Why? Because while MSN has been a limb of Windows 95, just about every computer maker has a bundling agreement with America Online. Presented fairly, side by side, Microsoft loses. That is all Netscape wants. That is what the all-but-dead alternatives like Spyglass wanted, too.

I respect home field advantage. I do. But I will never respect a team that doesn't give its opponent a chance to get on the playing field. Capitalism is not a form of solitaire, and soon Microsoft will be engaged in a little prisoner DOJ ball.

You see, Bill Gates is not immune to two things: cream pies and justice. The latter won't taste as good as the former, but eventually they will both slam you in the face. The silent "Uncles" that have been muttered by competitors in the past will have to end. You see, you have every right to be a bully on the beach, flexing muscle and kicking sand into weaklings' faces -- as long as you never claim ownership of the entire beach. The surf is rising, the days of collecting on Go are numbered, and that hotel on Boardwalk, soon, will be fair game to one and all.