From: Digest To: "OS/2GenAu Digest" Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 00:00:07 EST-10EDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600 Subject: [os2genau_digest] No. 330 Reply-To: X-List-Unsubscribe: www.os2site.com/list/ ************************************************** Wednesday 24 April 2002 Number 330 ************************************************** Subjects for today 1 [os2genau] Fwd: Gates put out enough bs to fertilize 80 acres. : John Angelico" **= Email 1 ==========================** Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 15:32:58 +1000 (EST) From: "John Angelico" Subject: [os2genau] Fwd: Gates put out enough bs to fertilize 80 acres. Forwarded from POSSI discussion group to with [my editorial comments] Best regards John Angelico OS/2 SIG talldadatmelbpc dot org dot au or talldadatkepl dot com dot au ____________________________________________ ==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE================== > April 23, 2002 On Witness Stand, Gates Condemns Microsoft Penalties http://www.nytimes dot com/2002/04/23/technology/23SOFT.html By AMY HARMON WASHINGTON, April 22 — Bill Gates, the chairman and co-founder of Microsoft, took the witness stand today for the first time in the antitrust case against the company, declaring that the penalties sought by a coalition of state prosecutors would cripple Microsoft, harm consumers and drag the entire computer industry into stagnation. Opening his appearance with a multimedia presentation, Mr. Gates could almost have been at an industry trade show. He demonstrated why he believes that the states' proposals would fracture the Windows operating system used by millions of Americans, sowing confusion and driving up prices. "Instead of being able to buy a machine with Windows and knowing that all your applications would run, you wouldn't have that assurance," Mr. Gates said today. [Just like today - Windows XP requires users to upgrade their programs, and yesterday/last year/the year before. Which Windows release has not had this effect??] In written testimony submitted before his court appearance, Mr. Gates said Microsoft would be forced to withdraw Windows from the market if Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court adopted the states' demand for a version of the operating system that can be customized by computer makers and software designers. [What's so terrible about the idea of customising Windows? Doesn't MS encourage users to do it?] Mr. Gates's performance was a stark contrast to the combative, evasive persona Mr. Gates projected during a videotaped deposition played for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the Federal District Court during the liability phase of the trial. Wearing a dark blue suit, Mr. Gates was quick to answer questions and strove to appear helpful, frequently responding "yes, sir," to questions from Steven Kuney, a lawyer for the states who conducted his cross-examination. During the six-week hearing, the states have referred to Microsoft's position as the "Doomsday defense," and Mr. Kuney sought today to portray Mr. Gates's interpretation of the states' proposals as so extreme as to be nonsensical on several fronts. Mr. Kuney asked "did you mean us to take quite literally," the notion that several of the states' proposals "would lead to the end of innovation and eliminate most of the current employees of Microsoft?" "That's correct," Mr. Gates answered. [It can't be the end of innovation at MS since this implies there was a beginning somewhere] For all the high-profile debate and taxpayer dollars spent on the four-year-old case, the penalty phase of the trial has until now proceeded in relative obscurity. Once the possibility of a Microsoft breakup was all but ruled out by a federal appeals court, the question of how to restrict Microsoft's future conduct has been mired in technical debates and dueling economic projections. But Mr. Gates's presence underscored the degree to which the company views the outcome of the hearing as vital to the future of the company. His 155-page written testimony, in which he dissects each of the provisions sought by the states, seeks to make Mr. Gates's point that the penalties leave no motivation for the company to continue to be innovative. [Since the company is not innovative now, this point about motivation is somewhat moot!] The penalties recommended by the states include requiring Microsoft to share with competitors technical information and blueprints about how some of its most popular software works. In his written testimony, Mr. Gates argued such penalties would cause "a massive transfer of Microsoft's intellectual property rights" to competitors in addition to being impossible to carry out. [But what about the past massive transfer of property ie money into MS by means of practices declared to be illegal? Is there no concept of justice in the sense that MS will be deprived of the spoils of its past conduct?] In many ways, Mr. Gates's objections to the states' proposals echo the same philosophical and technical disputes that have been at the core of the case since it began. Microsoft has long maintained that there is no clear line between what is in the operating system and what is a separate product because it is all a collection of the electronic 1's and 0's of computer code. [Yes, just as there is no boundary between a car's tyres and the road - after all they're all merely carbon and hydrogen atoms] Microsoft hopes that Mr. Gates will persuade a judge who is relatively new to the case not to risk meddling with a company that has long been an economic engine for the technology industry and the American economy. "The same `positive feedback loop' that propelled the PC industry to years of steady growth would work in reverse," Mr. Gates warned of states' proposals, "causing the industry to stagnate as products became more expensive to develop even as they provided fewer benefits and less interoperability." But Mr. Kuney challenged Mr. Gates's assertion that what is good for Microsoft is good for the computer industry: "Most people think when we have a monopoly that the interests of that firm are not always aligned with the interests of the industry, isn't that the case?" Mr. Kuney asked. [That proposition was barely sustainable when GM used it. See Orwell's '1984' for a refutation by parody] Mr. Kuney also questioned Mr. Gates's testimony that Microsoft already goes to great lengths to disclose technical information so software developers can write programs that work well with Microsoft products. He produced an internal memorandum from Mr. Gates instructing employees to stop trying to make Microsoft Office documents work with rival Web browsers. "We have to stop putting any effort into this," Mr. Gates wrote in the December 1998 e-mail message. "Anything else is suicide for our platform.." "You read it correctly," Mr. Gates said, bristling just slightly. [Of course!] Throughout most of the afternoon's testimony, however, Mr. Gates remained calm and conversational, refusing to back down from his positions even as Mr. Kuney sought to paint them as absurd. The proceeding before Judge Kollar-Kotelly is the culmination of a case that began when the Justice Department and 20 states filed antitrust charges against Microsoft on May 18, 1998, in what was seen as a historic case that would set the ground rules of competition in the digital age. After a 78-day trial, Judge Jackson ruled that Microsoft had repeatedly violated antitrust laws by using its monopoly power in the market for personal computer operating systems to challenge the Netscape Navigator browser and the Java programming language of Sun Microsystems, rivals to Windows. He ordered the company to be broken in two. Last year, a federal appeals court upheld several of Judge Jackson's findings but overturned others, including the breakup order. The appeals court directed the district court to impose a penalty based on the revised ruling that would restore competition, deny Microsoft the rewards of its illegal activity and prevent its repetition. In January, the Bush administration and nine of the states remaining in the litigation settled with Microsoft out of court. But nine other states, along with the District of Columbia, have refused to go along with the terms of the settlement, which has been widely criticized as a sweetheart deal. They argue that unless carefully restrained, Microsoft will repeat the same pattern by illegally seeking to eliminate new challengers to its Windows monopoly. Don Hawkinson dwhawkatintcon dot net ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE=================== PMTagline v1.50 - Copyright, 1996-1997, Stephen Berg and John Angelico .... OXYMORON #599: Windows productivity ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------