Microsoft digs up a different playing field

The Microsoft antitrust trial is creating a smokescreen behind which the company is preparing to dominate a new IT market, writes Gary Smitherman.

Although the Microsoft antitrust case has generated several forests worth of stories so far, it has left us with precious few memorable moments. Let's face it, there is never going to be a film version starring Brad Pitt as Bill Gates.

About the only humorous instance I recall was when Steven McGeady, former Intel executive, was asked under cross examination why he had described Microsoft staff as "cannibals".

He explained that some of them reminded him of a famous incident in the Wild West when a wagon train was caught in a blizzard and the occupants resorted to eating each other. As the courtroom was digesting this thought, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly suggested that it was time for lunch.

In contrast, Bill Gates's recent testimony raised few laughs. Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect seemed to ignore the reason he was there.

He avoided referring to monopolies, and instead explained why the nine states trying to increase Microsoft's penalties would turn back the clock on Windows development by a decade.

Just look at Tandy, Commodore and Atari, he said. Their incompatibility led to their downfall. Allowing software developers into the Windows code, as demanded, would lead to the fragmentation of the operating system, with Microsoft's intellectual property being torn apart by its rivals.

Me? Arrogant?

The IT industry is an ecosystem with Microsoft in the centre, said Gates, apparently oblivious to the accusations of arrogance that followed his previous deposition in 1998.

Whatever Microsoft says, when you have 70 per cent of the world's business PCs running on a version of Windows, the development of which is controlled by one company, it does not encourage choice or innovation.

Imagine the motor industry working this way, with most private cars running on a proprietary design of engine that no manufacturer is allowed to improve on. What happens when you crash? Do you press ctrl/alt/delete on your dashboard?

What everyone involved in the antitrust case seems to have missed is that the world has moved on. The fact that Internet Explorer is bundled with Windows is neither here nor there. Microsoft is already trying to do for web services what it did for operating systems through its .Net strategy.

As the firm's website explains: ".Net is designed to let many different services and systems interact on a playing field big enough for lots of teams."

This relies on the teams being allowed into the stadium in the first place. And Microsoft intends to stand at the turnstile with its hand out.