Re: [SLUG] Let your voice be heard! US vs. Microsoft

From: Tim Wright (t.wright1@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2002 - 22:28:35 EST


Time's running out, and there's ten days left before the deadline.

Get your dibs in before it's too late. Leave the flames and foaming at the
mouth for other occasions. These DOJ guys are bureaucrats, so they probably
like big words with lots of syllables.

I just sent in my two cents worth tonight. Get yours in before the 27th.

On Saturday 29 December 2001 12:10, you wrote:
> All
>
> I encourage all of you to write the Department of Justice and share your
> views on the US vs Microsoft Case.
>
> Here is the correct information. Bear in mind that if you choose to comment
> -- and you should -- it must arrive before January 27. The correct e-mail
> address is microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov while the correct fax numbers are
> 1-202-307-1454 or 1-202-616-9937.
>
> Here is a link to the story on Linuxtoday:
> http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-12-26-005-20-OP-MS

Microsoft Judgement and Remedies
From: Tim Wright <t.wright1@mindspring.com>
To: microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 22:16:41 -0500

Any remedy in the Microsoft judgment must restore competition to the
marketplace. Microsoft's monopoly position and persistent anticompetitive
behavior were issues that brought the case up in the first place, and normal
market forces of competition would have prevented these problems. Restoring
competition will balance the market and allow end users the choice that we
value so highly in a free and open market.

An effective remedy must employ rigorous measures to correct the market
imbalance and prevent future anticompetitive behavior from Microsoft. Their
established patterns of violating consent decrees and continually testing how
far they can step outside of the Court's orders indicate that Microsoft will
continue to employ anticompetitive business practices for as long as they are
capable. Past behavior and published internal documents from Microsoft
support the suspicion that this corporation will continue to stifle
competition to unlawfully maintain its monopoly position.

The most effective measure to restore competition to the marketplace is to
break up Microsoft. This remedy proved highly effective in the cases of
Standard Oil, the Bell System, and countless others. History has proved out
that neither the petroleum nor the telecommunications business sectors
suffered ill effect from breaking up Standard Oil and the Bell System. The
facts show that both sectors flourished substantially after breaking up
monopolies into smaller business units and restoring competition to these
markets.

As the Bell System was broken up into "Baby Bell" telephone operating
companies, and Standard Oil was broken up into smaller, competing petroleum
companies, Microsoft should be broken up into an operating systems company,
an applications software company, and an Internet services and communications
company. This follows the successful pattern employed with the Bell System,
where AT&T retained long distance telephone service, and local service was
provided by a group of competing local Bell Operating Companies, the "Baby
Bells."

To clarify matters, applications software is defined as computer software
intended for specific tasks: word processing, database processing, graphic
editing and rendering, audio/video/multimedia rendering, enterprise resource
control and planning, local and wide area network administration,
communication clients, Web browsers, utility functions such as encryption and
data file management, and numerous other, similar functions. These
applications all require an operating system to function.

An operating system is defined as the computer infrastructure required for
the basic operation of the computer hardware and supporting applications
software: data input/output, data storage, and other functions to allow
hardware to communicate. Operating systems carry out general tasks necessary
to support the computer system and make it useful, leaving specific tasks to
applications software that can be added and removed by the end user without
degrading the operating system.

Internet services and communication are remote location services accessed via
the Internet or similar telecommunications means. These services include, but
are not limited to, information, telecommunications via text (e-mail), voice,
and/or video images, access to the World Wide Web, business transactions
(e-business, e-trade), and similar wide area communications.

Breaking up Microsoft in such a fashion puts the company on a more equal
footing with competing firms in the computer software and Internet
communications service industries. Breaking the operating system monopoly
away from the applications software business unit will prevent further
occurrences of unlawful and anticompetitive software bundling, an issue that
brought this dispute into court in the first place. Making all the
participants in the applications software market equal will foster
competition and innovation, as shown by the telecommunications boom that
occurred after the Bell System breakup.

The Bell System precedent illustrates that end users will not suffer any loss
from breaking up Microsoft. In fact, the end users will likely be the biggest
beneficiaries as competition encourages innovation, reduced costs, and
improved quality. This was the case with the Bell System breakup. An adequate
and competent monopoly was broken up to pave the way for substantial
innovation and excellence in that business sector. End users currently pay
less for more and better telecommunications service in a competitive market.
The same benefit will come from breaking up Microsoft.

In the event that the Court chooses not to break up Microsoft, the following
remedies are suggested as alternative means to achieve a restoration of
competition in the computer software and data communications market:

Regulate Microsoft and the MS-Windows operating systems as a public utility,
much the same as electric and water utilities. This will require additional
government infrastructure to administer. Such regulation would have to remain
in effect as long as Microsoft holds a monopoly. The political overhead of
establishing and operating a regulatory agency may be unwieldy, and this will
likely require action from Congress to establish and fund such regulatory
activity.

Prohibit exclusivity clauses in operating system software licenses.
Microsoft's practice of requiring hardware vendors to exclude other operating
systems as a condition for purchasing MS-Windows only perpetuates Microsoft's
monopoly position. End users should have a choice of operating system
software, to include double and multiple boot options to use more than one
operating system on the same computer. A healthy and competitive marketplace
allows end users to select which operating system(s) they want, rather than
having vendors dictate to customers what they will use. Consumers must be
free to decline pre-loaded copies of the MS-Windows operating systems and
return unused operating system software for a refund. Computer hardware
manufacturers and distributors must be free to load any operating system(s)
that they and their paying customers choose into computer hardware. Current
business practice has the operating system tied to the hardware by a monopoly
(Microsoft), leaving purchasers obliged to pay for software that they may not
want and cannot return for credit. Microsoft has abused its monopoly position
to bar potential competitors from the market, using business practices not
too far removed from those of the Standard Oil monopoly in its day.

Another alternative or adjunct to breaking up Microsoft into three companies
would be to make the MS-Windows family of operating systems public domain,
and Microsoft would have to agree to leave the proprietary operating system
market in order to prevent re-establishing a monopoly. This action would
effectively dissolve the monopoly that has been at the heart of this case.
This action must be voluntary on Microsoft's part, because it could be
construed as a taking by the government, rather than the remedy in a lawsuit.
Microsoft's violation of antitrust law must not be parlayed into an occasion
to collect taxpayer dollars, should Microsoft give up proprietary ownership
of the MS-Windows family of operating systems.

A public domain Windows operating system can be standardized and administered
by nonprofit industrial standards governing organizations, much the same way
as World Wide Web domain names and related administrative Internet
infrastructure is maintained by the user community. Such a move would place
the Windows operating systems in a position analogous to industry standards
that serve the general public as a whole.

The overriding concern is that whatever remedy the Court imposes on the
Microsoft case, it must restore competition to the market. The best solutions
are those that allow natural market forces to prevail, rather than increased
governmental oversight and regulation that diverts taxpayer dollars from more
pressing issues. Like Standard Oil, Microsoft has persistently and
continually employed unlawful practices to maintain a monopoly, and only the
most rigorous measures will be effective at correcting the situation.

William T. Wright
Tampa, Florida



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