You'll Nader walk alone

Software MS under fire at conference.

Microsoft came under fierce attack from consumer activists and lawyers on the opening day of a Washington DC conference last week set up to examine the software supplier's business ethics.

Dismissed by the company as a 'kangaroo court', the Appraising Microsoft conference was the brainchild of US consumer advocate Ralph Nader and is intended to provide a public forum to put the supplier's alleged anti-competitive practices under the spotlight.

The conference came at the same time as a separate investigation into Microsoft's business practices by the US Justice Department and four state attorney generals. Nader said he had organised the event in response to what he sees as Microsoft's damaging impact on the US economy and its stifling of technological innovation.

Microsoft was invited to attend the conference, but in a letter sent to Nader, Bob Herbold, chief operating officer at the software developer, said it was like being invited to walk 'into an ambush with sharpshooters on every hilltop'. He added: 'This conference makes me wonder whether your speakers travelled by Qantas because it has all the hallmarks of a kangaroo court.'

Herbold's remarks concerned the list of anti-Microsoft speakers invited to air their views at the conference. They included Netscape general counsel Roberta Katz, attorney Gary Reback and Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy.

The letter claimed that Nader had rejected Microsoft's suggestions for 'respected industry participants' who would present 'a balanced view'. Nader was also criticised for charging a conference attendance fee of $1,000 and for the amount of advertising that had preceded the event.

'It's curious that the conference was advertised in full-page national newspaper ads, costing upwards of $50,000 a piece,' Herbold wrote. 'How is it that a non-profit making organisation like yours can find the money to finance such expensive advertising and marketing efforts on behalf of companies that compete with Microsoft?'

'As a consumer advocate,' he told Nader, 'you should want to support a market defined by strong competition that results in continually improving product quality and declining prices. There are 7,500 commercial software developers in the US alone and more than four million developers worldwide for Windows. Hardly an industry on its knees.'

Nader hit back at Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and his right-hand man Steve Ballmer for not attending the conference. 'What are they so afraid of?' he demanded. 'I don't understand why they are not here to engage in an open debate.'

He was supported by Mitch Kertzman, CEO of relational database firm Sybase, who said: 'If Microsoft would try harder to participate in open debates, the public's opinion about it would improve.

But to continue to attack its critics is only going to work against it.'

Herbold's fears appeared to have been well founded, however, given the stridently anti-Microsoft tone of speakers on the first day. McNealy denied that his rhetoric was fuelled by jealousy. 'I don't want to be Bill Gates,' he insisted. 'Besides, it rains all the time in Seattle.'

McNealy positioned himself as head of the only hardware company ready to hold out against Microsoft, pointing out that he was the only CEO at the conference. 'That's because all the others are reselling Microsoft's products,' he claimed. 'If I were Microsoft I would not show up today either because it might only serve to be bad for my shareholders.'

But the bitterest attack came from attorney Reback, a long-time and vociferous critic of Microsoft, who insisted that the company's near-monopolistic hold on the market was detrimental.

'Buying an operating system today is like walking into a shoe store and being told that there is not only one style of shoe, but that it only comes in one colour and one size,' he said.

He added: 'I believe that Microsoft will use control of the Windows standard to lock content providers into a similar biased standard.'