THE MICROSOFT SOLUTION
a simple way to resolve the 2002 anti-trust
suit against Microsoft
There is such irony in certain events, over which you and I
have no control, that it sometimes makes us want to cry.
How could they NOT GET IT!? We can see the simple solution,
but the government will never get it. I’m thinking of the
federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, and how much
is being wasted in order to hobble that company, when the
next 1000 words would settle it satisfactorily for
everyone.
We all know that Microsoft was sued by the federal
government for violating antitrust law. The suit, as best
anyone can tell, is still being waged in court. The trial
may never end, and most of the world has lost interest
anyway. We can see the inevitable, that no matter how the
suit may one day be settled (free computers to developing
countries, better wallpaper for Windows, billion-dollar
fines paid to the feds, whatever), we will still have
Windows just as it exists today, and you and I will
continue to have exactly the same problems with Microsoft
that we’ve always had.
You know what the problems are:
1) Software doesn’t install properly.
2) The first twenty questions every user has about a
program aren’t answered in the documentation or the help
file.
3) You keep performing illegal functions and incurring
invalid page faults and being scolded for not shutting down
Windows properly.
4) You know your software has certain features that can be
turned on and off, but you can’t find where to do it. When
you find the check box to turn something on or off, the
program won’t let you.
5) You received the original installation disks when you
bought your computer and you have faithfully honored the
licensing agreements as best you can guess what they say.
But when you really need Microsoft’s customer support,
you’re told that you need to pay hundreds of dollars for
it.
6) And on it goes...
Here is what I wish the judge in the antitrust trial would
do.
A) Rule that Microsoft has a
monopoly. Big deal. Telephone and electricity
providers have been monopolies for decades, and forcing
them to break up has been as stupid as it would be to force
the U.S. Treasury to relinquish its monopoly on the
monetary system.
Microsoft has set the standard for personal computing.
Thank you, Microsoft! And in spite of the above constant
problems, Microsoft’s products are very, very good! The
monopoly isn’t such a bad thing. If it violates the law,
then Microsoft is guilty of violating a law that is
archaic, if not stupid, for not making an allowance. Look
at it this way: Microsoft Windows is much like a language
that we all can speak with different levels of proficiency.
It’s how we store and share information, just like a
language. Programs like Excel and Word are like the special
languages that scientists and artists speak within their
native tongue. Forcing a breakup of Microsoft would lead to
a sort of information processing Babel. English is so much
richer because it has adapted to everyone’s needs. If it
were confined to a segment of the population, and everyone
else were forced to adopt a new language, none would be as
rich or as useful as the one common tongue.
As a business, Microsoft will one day go under, if it’s not
first absorbed by RJR/Nabisco. Microsoft will bank on
Windows and mouse clicks and will eventually grow stodgy
and unresponsive to the market and some day won’t see a
future innovation sneaking up on it. Some other technology
will suddenly wash over it and leave a mere mound of
Microsand on the beach where the great Windows castle once
stood, and we’ll all have a new day in the Sun, maybe
sipping Java for a change. I don’t know and I don’t care
who or what it will be, but it will happen. That’s how free
enterprise will deal with the immediate monopoly of
Microsoft.
B) (Here’s what else I
wish the judge would do.) Slap
Microsoft sharply across the knuckles with a brass
ruler. Their sin is not in monopolizing the
world of computing. Their sin is that, in monopolizing the
world of computing, they have arrogantly distanced
themselves from us poor suckers who are forced to endure
the software bugs that result in the foregoing list of
problems.
Regardless of the legal technicality – did they violate
anti-trust law or not – they are a monopoly. Therefore –
and pay attention, because here’s the
solution – I wish the judge would order
Microsoft to open a free, 24/7, worldwide help line with no
log-ins and no waiting. If we all must use their products,
and that’s what Microsoft has strived to achieve, then we
all should have access to unequivocal, unrestricted,
reasonably-immediate support.
That should be their penalty. That would have the greatest
benefit for the greatest number of non-lawyers, would shove
the hot poker into Microsoft where it would do the most
good, and would potentially prompt Microsoft to make their
very good products as good as they are advertised to be.
Even apart from the antitrust lawsuit, there would be a
distinct benefit to Microsoft in voluntarily setting up
free, 24/7, worldwide help line with no log-ins and no
waiting: I might actually buy their product instead of
treating it like freeware. I have already sunk hundreds
into Windows, Works, and Office, but only when it was
absolutely necessary, as when buying a new computer. When
I’ve cobbled together a charity computer from spare parts,
(and I’ve given away dozens of computers this way), I’ve
loaded the operating system using the latest Windows disks
in my collection. When one member of the household gets
Microsoft Office CDs with a new computer, that version of
Office goes onto the rest of the computers in the house. My
attitude is, if it won’t work properly on the computer it
came with, and it never does, then the product isn’t what
it purports to be, and if I have to pay hundreds of dollars
just to talk with them, then Microsoft has given up its
chance to persuade me that it is what it purports to be. If
it doesn’t perform as advertised and Microsoft won’t
provide service, then Microsoft has no claim to my respect
for its business practices, including its regal licensing
agreement.
Microsoft, the monopoly doesn’t make all the rules. The
consumer sets some conditions too. My condition is, I’ll
honor your claim to collect a license fee for my use of
your product if you’ll honor my claim to information about
it. I am not alone in this attitude. Won’t talk to me? Then
I won’t send you the fee if I don’t have to.
I don’t know how to reach the judge or Microsoft with this
solution. So I’ve gone out on a limb with it, where I will
sit and see who notices.
2002
©DamnYankee.com
