Features

Microsoft competitors mostly mum as users complain

By Bob Porterfield
Monday November 04, 2002

SAN JOSE – Microsoft Corp.’s rivals vowed to continue to push for a stronger antidote to the software giant’s domination of the software market after a court ruling largely upheld the federal government’s remedies. 

Sun Microsystems Inc., long one of Microsoft’s harshest critics, urged the nine states that objected to the federal government’s antitrust settlement to appeal the decision made Friday by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. 

“Choice, innovation and competition form the foundation of the technology industry,” said Sun Microsystems attorney Michael Morris. “(Friday’s) ruling does little to advance these principles or to protect the millions of developers and businesses that want an open marketplace.” 

AOL Time Warner Inc.’s Web browser subsidiary, Netscape, will continue to battle Microsoft in a pending lawsuit “designed to promote competition and deter further anticompetitive behavior,” said Paul T. Cappuccio, the company’s general counsel. 

Microsoft nearly drove Netscape out of business in the late 1990s when it melded its own Explorer Web browser into the Windows operating system that controls more than 90 percent of all personal computers. 

AOL wound up buying Netscape after it relinquished its leadership in the Web browser market to Microsoft. 

“The effort to constrain Microsoft’s monopoly has neither ended, nor been without result,” Cappuccio said. 

Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of another Web browser maker Opera Software in Oslo, Norway, also expressed disappointment with Kollar-Kotelly’s decision. 

“It isn’t very much of a settlement at all,” he said. “Microsoft was found guilty. There were no real remedies, no actual punishment.” 

Morris said Palo Alto-based Sun will continue to pursue its own civil lawsuit against Microsoft so the company “does not continue to use its monopoly position to become the gatekeeper of the Internet.” 

University of Baltimore law professor Bob Lande characterized the decision as “either a total victory for Microsoft or close to it. 

“They ought to be celebrating in Redmond tonight. The states just didn’t convince the judge of the bulk of their issues,” Lande said. “The judge didn’t buy their story ... it’s going to be really hard for the states to appeal this successfully.” 

Nine states, including California, had argued that the settlement didn’t go far enough in protecting consumers and giving competitors a fair chance to compete with Windows products. 

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said an appeal of Friday’s decision is possible, but indicated he is inclined to enforce the provisions of the federal government’s settlement. 

“I would regard the outcome as neither total victory nor total defeat.” Lockyer said. 

Consumers shopping at popular computer store in the heart of Silicon Valley Friday had a mixed reaction to the ruling. 

“I like Microsoft products, and I don’t have a vendetta against (chairman) Bill Gates, but they really needed to be slapped down,” said Mark Banks, 41, of Morgan Hill, Calif. “Only time will tell if (these sanctions) are enough, but it sounds like a good start.” 

As he carried a computer with the Windows XP system, Kevin Wallace of Fremont said the decision virtually assures nothing will change in the high-tech industry. “There is just too much Microsoft and not enough of the little guy.” 

Preserving the status quo sounded fine to Ernest Yu of Hayward. 

“I have tried a lot of different things out there and I haven’t seen anything that can run the number of applications that Windows does. I haven’t seen anything that is perfect. I like Windows.”