Call me smug for sitting here and typing this in Microsoft Word…
Well, it finally happened: Microsoft has been declared a monopoly be the government of the United States. At this time, people are still worried about whether or not their computers are "Y2K" compliant. That's worth a little panic, for certain, but this anti-trust ruling, coming at a time when people are already a little computer-frightened, makes us all fill with angst over the future of personal computing. Even people who have sworn never to use anything that came from Redmond.
They say the Evil Empire has a monopoly in the operating system market. I'm not sure, but is 95% of the market share close enough to be called a monopoly? If the problem truly is monopolizing the operating system market, there are several possible solutions. Here are a few of my ideas:
The obvious choice would be to reduce Microsoft's OS market share to a manageable level. (I'm sure Microsoft would think they were going out of business if they only had an 80% share.) And who better to compete with Windows than the Mac OS? Of course, it wouldn't be quite fair (or even necessarily helpful) for the government to hand Apple money. It's not how much money Apple has, it's how many people are using Macs. Just as tobacco companies have had to spend money on anti-smoking campaigns, perhaps Microsoft should foot the bill for a few of Apple's TV commercials. Note the problem, though, in helping Apple: Microsoft owns a bite of that company!
We're not talking about the Army here. We're talking about the notion that Microsoft has used its considerable muscle to pressure computer makers into putting Windows - and only Windows - into their new PCs. (Anybody remember DR-DOS?) Of course, that's what most people want, probably for lack of other choices. However, even people who have never seen a BeBox might be interested in having BeOS (instead of Windows) installed on their new PC. Hey, they could even install those cool blinking LEDs to monitor report usage. BeOS is growing up fast and has all the treats for web surfing and the like, plus good enough performance to wow more demanding users. Of course, before PC vendors start offering a BeOS bundle, more big-time applications from familiar sounding companies would need to be released. Face it: if Adobe released Photoshop for the BeOS, more people would make the move.
Another possibility, one that has a better chance of taking shape, would be to bundle Linux in new PCs. There is lots and lots of software for UNIX-style environments, although admittedly you're not going to find much of it on store shelves. However, the apps that out there frequently come from big-name companies. WordPerfect, anyone? Plus, strangely, the original may be the best: UNIX has been around for decades (!) and its ability to smoothly handle beefy computing tasks remains, to this day, unmatched. Perhaps with a more Linux-friendly market, we'll start seeing more multiple-processor PCs in the near future.
Speaking of Linux, Microsoft should take a good, hard look at it: the core software is free, and thousands of people have contributed to its development - without pay, no less! Apple has been looking at this "open source" system and is working on one of its own: Darwin, to be the open source version of Mac OS X. Microsoft could easily solve its OS monopoly woes by declaring Windows as open source. People could buy or download whatever distribution of Windows they please (Red Hat Windows?) and Microsoft would still have their lucrative Office products and a bunch of games to sell.
Even though it's really just a symptom of a bigger problem, what this is whole anti-trust thing is about is that Microsoft seems to have crushed this competitor: Netscape. I find it silly that all this fuss is over whose free browser people can use. Here's my personal story: on my Macintosh, I use Netscape (in part because I want it to remain as Microsoft-free as possible) but on my PC, I use Internet Explorer. After all, it is tied closely to Windows (which the complaint is about) and using it - or a variation of it - in Windows 98 to browse your hard drive is simpler and more elegant, in my opinion, than the old Windows Explorer of Windows 95. Using a different browser in Windows 98 can be done with a certain amount of inconvenience to the user. Aside from downloading and installing it, Internet Explorer will certainly assert itself from time to time, and you may find yourself with two different browsers running at the same time. Who needs that? By the way, I don't really see Sun complaining that more people aren't surfing the web with Hot Java. Perhaps we should all start using lynx again; at least it's unencumbered by a big company controlling it. (Of course, it isn't any more or less free than other browsers.) Anyone using the Opera browser by the way? In this day and age, who would pay for a browser when there are so many free ones?
But I digress. I think the quickest fix for Microsoft's woes would be to spin off Internet Explorer into a new company. Of course, this would mess up a big portion of the Windows 98 interface. Not to mention delaying Windows 2000 when Microsoft has to come up with a new way to work browser-free.
Who knows, IBM may try to revive OS/2 and start bundling it with their PCs. Microsoft might spin off that pesky browser of theirs. Macs may start showing up at Wal-Mart. Most likely, however, is that the government will start fining Microsoft a million dollars per day again, and the price of Microsoft products will rise, and basically nothing will change.
Maybe they should start selling Amigas again.