Platform ploys in the public eye

When Microsoft wanted Netscape Communications to move away from the Windows browser market, the software giant offered the Web start-up an interesting deal.

In exchange for Netscape's assurance that it would stay away from the Windows browser market, Microsoft would give the company access to something far more valuable: undocumented Windows application programming interfaces (APIs), the gateway to all the Windows operating system's fundamental technologies.

By offering a peek at the company's crown jewels--hidden Windows APIs--Microsoft's hope was to derail Netscape's plan to position Navigator as a platform alternative to Windows, with an entire set of APIs outside Redmond's control.

According to a deposition made public in the ongoing antitrust investigation of Microsoft, Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen claimed that in a meeting with Microsoft in 1995, company executives hatched the plan and "emphasized that they could not accept Netscape competing as a platform [against Windows] with its own APIs."

Undaunted, Netscape attempted to play Microsoft's game, and ultimately lost. But laid bare through evidence presented in the ongoing Justice Department (DOJ) suit, and the Java copyright infringement case brought by Sun Microsystems is how Microsoft maintains a hammerlock on platform dominance.

That failed Netscape deal and others like it illustrate where Microsoft's real power comes from: it's the closely guarded and controlled Windows API, not Windows itself, that is the jewel in its crown.

"Microsoft has always owned technology by owning the API," said Ted Schadler, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It's a lesson learned from IBM that by changing interfaces they can control the game."

The strategy is not new. Both IBM and Digital Equipment, now a division of Compaq, have been accused of using similar platform domination schemes in the past.

However, with the rapid growth in the number of personal computers being sold, Microsoft now wields enormous power through its control of those underlying APIs.

Microsoft controls Windows--the platform used on more than 90 percent of the world's PCs. The company is pushing its platform domination into all new areas, such as mobile electronics with Windows CE and the upper-reaches of the corporate world with Windows NT, now called Windows 2000.

Each and every copy of Windows includes an underlying API--Win32 in Windows 98 and Windows NT--that defines how Windows applications communicate with hardware, system resources, and peripherals.

Developers write software directly to the Windows API, which then interfaces with the operating system. To write applications tightly linked to Windows--the most popular operating system on the planet--software makers must code to Microsoft-controlled APIs.

Software makers benefit

API: application programming interface A language and message template used by various programs to communicate with the operating system or other system programs. In building the series of commands into a template or standard, the API becomes a "language," that both the software and the higher system can understand and allows them to exchange complex messages through a single instruction.

because they are supporting the de facto industry standard; Microsoft wins because the overwhelming majority of applications run on its operating system.

Competitors, including Netscape, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and RealNetworks, argue that the process of developing Windows APIs is only partially open, and that Microsoft holds all the cards since it has final veto power over which APIs make it into Windows.

Publicly, Microsoft executives say they have no plan to "hijack" APIs and industry standards.

"We're a big believer in industry standard protocols," said Ed Muth, enterprise marketing group manager at Microsoft. "NT includes these today, in things like TCP/IP.

"But standard protocols don't always provide the functionality customers need to build advanced applications," Muth added. "To meet those needs, vendors layer on top of extended protocols to add advanced functionality."

Oracle went so far as to design its own file system in Oracle 8i, a new version of its database, in part to sidestep Microsoft's control of Windows APIs. Oracle is now positioning 8i's Internet File System as a competitor to Windows NT. "Microsoft has completely unpublished interfaces to their file system," claims Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, one of Microsoft's most vocal competitors.

In the past few months, claims are popping up everywhere that Microsoft is using its API hegemony to defend its platform dominance.

Just last month, in the unfair competition and copyright infringement case brought by Java inventor Sun Microsystems, evidence presented indicated that Microsoft set out to splinter the Java market through manipulation of APIs.

Microsoft's own executives admit that Java offers a serious alternative to Windows. Chairman Bill Gates, in email memos presented during the trial, went so far as to say of Java, "this scares the hell out of me."

The company's original battle plan? Build Java into every facet of Windows. The strategy, described in documents presented during the Sun trial, shows that Microsoft firmly believes Java to be a serious competitor to Windows.

Gates finally vetoed the Windows-Java scheme, and Microsoft set out to "pollute" Java by introducing Microsoft-specific APIs in its Visual J++ development tool and Java Virtual Machine, thereby locking the vast majority of computer users into Microsoft's products, internal Microsoft memos show.

Microsoft has also come under fire from the so-called open source community over leaked memos detailing plans to steer the direction of Linux, an open source operating system that has gained backers as an alternative to Windows NT.

One sentence, included in the so-called Halloween memos and echoed in newsgroup postings, involves a potential plan by Microsoft to "de-commoditize" standard APIs in Linux and elsewhere by adding proprietary extensions and locking consumers in to Microsoft products.

Whether or not the documents were intentionally leaked by Microsoft to show the existence of real competition, the memo's contents enraged developers.

"They [foolishly] want to destroy the process that created their opportunity and take control of the protocols [and thus the industry]," Bob Denny, a Web developer, said in an email message to CNET News.com. "In my 33 years' experience in computing, when this sort of thing happens, innovation and product quality decline and prices rise."

Other companies claim Microsoft also controls "hidden" APIs that it uses to gain an edge on competitors.

Both Apple Computer and RealNetworks claim that Microsoft intentionally "broke" their multimedia software by changing or manipulating underlying Windows APIs.