Lots of talk in the news lately about possible break up scenarios for Microsoft. I haven't been commenting because it all seems like talk at this point. But reading the Times today (that's what I do when I go get my coffee in the morning) it all came together for me. First off, even though I don't try to hide my anti-micorosoft bias, I am not in favor of the government getting involved in breaking them up. I rarely favor any sort of government intervention in any situation. The less Washington does the better. Still, I think Microsoft makes bad products. And not so much because I have some insight into how the code is written (I've never seen any of it) but because I disagree with their whole philosophy of producing computer products. Anyway, my dream would be for Microsoft to lose marketshare because consumers educate themselves enough to learn how it is that Microsoft is holding the whole computer/internet revolution back. In other words, they should lose on their own merits. Fat chance, I know, but the marketplace is the proper regulatory mechanism. As long as people insist on buying Windows, we all get what we deserve (i.e., buggy, virus prone, unsecure software.) So, my thought today was that the government CAN actually play an important role in all this. But not by trying to control Microsoft's actions through legislation and court actions. Instead, what I think should happen is that the government should review Microsoft and their products, and if they come to the conclusion (as Judge Jackson appears to be doing) that Microsoft is not making the best products if you take the health of the industry as a whole as your context, then the U.S. government should stop all of its arms from buying Microsoft products. To employ one of my least favorite terms: they should use their position as a "bully pulpit" to help educate users about the problems with these products. An example of this is the US army switching from NT based servers to Apple servers after a rash of security problems. Since the switch - no more problems. If all branches of the government dumped all Microsoft products (with maybe a yearly review of Microsoft, giving them the chance to change their ways) this would go much further to correcting the problems then just breaking them up into 2 or 3 (or even 5) seperate (monopolistic) companies. The government should lead by example, not by legislation. Corel actually sued the government a few months ago because they were buying Microsoft Word without any review of competing products (which is required by law for all government contracts.) This should happen on a much larger scale.
|
- jim 5-25-2000 7:10 pm