Microsoft v. DOJ, 10 years later: Did it make a difference?
Ten years ago today, the United States Department of Justice filed a landmark antirust lawsuit against Microsoft. Six months later, Google incorporated in Menlo Park, Calif.
The proximity of those two dates raises a delicious "what if." Knowing how the subsequent decade turned out, do you think the Justice Department would still have gone after Microsoft in 1998?
Former DOJ antitrust chief Joel Klein
(Credit: CNET News.com)I'm obviously asking a rhetorical question. Short of a H.G. Wells' time machine, Joel Klein and his trustbusters had no way to accurately predict tech's Google-centric future. But given the course of the technology industry in the subsequent decade, it's clear in retrospect how little the court battle mattered.
When the government and 20 states filed their antitrust lawsuit, they charged Microsoft with exerting a ''choke hold'' on rivals while denying consumer choice.
The lawsuit we filed today seeks to put an end to Microsoft's unlawful campaign to eliminate competition, deter innovation, and restrict consumer choice. In essence, what Microsoft has been doing, through a wide variety of illegal business practices, is leveraging its Windows operating system monopoly to force its other software products on consumers."
That reads like a blast from the past. I spent the better part of two years watching lawyers for Microsoft and the trustbusters argue before the bench. Beyond the day-to-day, though, this was fundamentally a debate about the future of the desktop at a time when the Windows operating system was under challenge from the Internet.
Bill Gates and his closest managers truly feared what would happen to Windows if Netscape's browser became the preferred conduit to the Internet. The court ultimately found Microsoft guilty of predatory behavior, but the company avoided potentially crippling, worst-case sanctions.
If they ever sat down for a frank off-the-record conversation, maybe Klein and Gates might agree that their fin de siecle confrontation was less significant than it was cracked up to be. All the while, the bigger challenge to Microsoft was being put together in relative obscurity by a couple of Stanford geeks named Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
So, what do you think?
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
The most recent would be XP on OLPC. No effort is spared in stopping any O.S. competition at any level.
Somehow the US outcome was vastly different to the European outcome, but even that heavy fine resulted in only slightly modified behaviour.
Money always helps convince politicians to see your side. :-(
I do think that the us case may have convinced the Europeans to take their case to trial.
You never know.
en
It is interesting that the most important issue in the trial turned out to be the communication protocols, an issue that came almost as an after-thought in the settlement. It is still an issue today.
And if Google, Apple and Linux mean anything it is interesting to wonder what the motivation behind the Eu's actions are.
..and I really won't be satisfied with this whole deal until I can.
(1) Microsoft was more concerned with SUN's java at the time
(2) Netscape's browsers were always no less dependent on leveraging Windows for market share than most other extremely popular software
The problem inherent in most anti-Microsoft sentiment is the very wrong idea that only Microsoft profits from Windows. Netscape achieved the success it did on the back of Windows by leveraging Windows, ironically enough. The company simply gave up and quit when Microsoft launched IE, and decided to create innovative propaganda for Congress instead of continuing to create innovative software for the marketplace. The continuing success of FireFox today proves that Netscape made the wrong choice, and it also proves that no matter what Microsoft may bundle with Windows, good 3rd-party software will always successfully compete with Microsoft.
Joel Klein was simply wrong to begin with because Klein, like so many others in Congress, didn't know enough about the subject of software to be able to refute or challenge the accusations Microsoft's competitors made--and make no mistake in thinking that the basis of the DoJ's lawsuit was not independently determined--rather it was spoon-fed the DoJ attorneys by the other parties with a vested interest--Microsoft's competitors. It's bias and taint could be seen for miles.
If people today think that the DoJ's remedies "didn't work" that's only because those "remedies" were based on falsehoods at the time they were instituted. Oh, yea--almost forgot--the official finding by the court at the end of the charade was that although Microsoft had done nothing illegal to obtain its monopoly, it was a monopolist nonetheless. One thing's for sure--if Microsoft was a "monopoly" and Linux, SUN, Apple and IBM "didn't count" as competition (who could forget Judge Jackson scoffing at Microsoft's attorneys when they mentioned Linux?)--then there's no way in hell that Intel is not just as much a monopoly today. Going to be interesting to see where the AMD lawsuit goes.
Interestingly Microsoft is still by far its own worst enemy: Vista, DRM, WGA, keep the hits coming Microsoft!
After this basically Microsoft got a miss trial. All the hard evidence was toss out.
I believe this same cycle will repeat over the next ten to twenty years with Google. As their voracious absorbing of everything electronic will eventually lead to them becoming the bad guys and Microsoft simply being one of the side players, glad to be out of the spotlight of vicious public attack.
The problem arises when people find that the functunality isn't quite as good. At least that's been my personal experience. It's much like anything else. If I find a product that works I use it. I try others and decide which is best. It's like taking new cars for test drives. Just go around the block and there ain't much difference. Use the car for two or three days, each car, and you can make a better comparison.I like Microsft products, they work, are easy to learn new features. And besides, Google isn't the biggest competitor Microsoft has. It's IBM. While Microsoft runs scared of Google and tries to be it and itself, IBM makes the type of inroads it could never have before Redmond got really scared.
But, did it really make a significant impact? Windows is still the dominant operating system, Microsoft Office is still the dominant productivity suite? It did make developers invest in new paradigms and sort after new territory where Microsoft never felt any interest in. Search, Ad Sense, Social Networking. Areas people are looking at as the main focus for innovation going forward.
1) Downloading a browser on a 14.4 modem wasn't realistic.
2) Bundling Netscape was banned by Microsoft through exclusive deals with OEMs.
So Netscape was only ever going to become the browser for those who could be bothered getting a copy and who didn't want to use the default browser which was IE.
Put yourself in Netscapes position. They were muscled out of just about every distribution channel possible. Microsoft saw to that one and did a pretty good job to.
I always think comments like yours are quite sad and wonder what you would be saying had you been the guy who invented the browser and then watching it being taken off you by an aggressive 40 ton gorilla of a company who stopped your every move with bribes, lock in contracts, and other practice that you could do nothing about.
Make no mistake about it, the browser war was extremely important and even Google fear Microsoft's dominance in browsers.
But as for justice, you have to feel for the small but innovative guy who had a great future, but was snuffed out.
Anyway what Netscape was going to do for the Web is pretty much covered by Google now. So you can kill a company, but not the idea.
- by shusseina2 May 19, 2008 11:21 PM PDT
- Unfortunately, the trial came too late as the damage was already done. The witnesses for the prosecution was a who's who of the IT industry - Sun, Apple, IBM, Netscape, etc, etc.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(25 Comments)It is clear that Microsoft abused their position in the industry to stifle competition and innovation to the disadvantage of all IT users.
I don't believe the change it the IT landscape makes the DOJ's lawsuit meaningless, though it did come too late and it did not have enough political will behind it. While I am sure there are other contributing factors, it is no accident that today Microsoft faces stiff (and healthy) competition from the likes of Google, Apple, Adobe, Linux vendors, etc. This not only good for all users of IT, but it should push Microsoft to push the envelope and innovate further.
I look forward to the innovation that is now possible from companies such as Google, Amazon, Saleforces.com, Apple and countless others...including Microsoft.