How can Microsoft do this with products which Postrel asserts are inferior? Do consumers make mistakes? Is the free market failing us? Is Microsoft sleazy? I'm a longtime REASON subscriber myself, and such conclusions, if true, would be horrifying to me. Postrel does a good job of answering these questions. But she doesn't fully articulate the real answer: Microsoft's products have actually been far superior to those of our competitors.
Recognize that products are more than just the knobs--they are made up of price, image, distribution, compatibility, third-party support, and many other features. It wasn't just the great prices of Microsoft software that led the company to the "network externality" of compatibility among users of the same operating system--nor did the company stumble luckily into this situation. It was a calculated activity to create that as a product feature of DOS and Windows.
Microsoft recognized that users want one operating system to be predominant on a given platform. It makes more software available since developers can target just one platform. It fosters innovation since developers can focus on improving their products rather than writing for multiple operating systems. So we set out from the beginning to make DOS and Windows open in the sense that we told other software companies--even competitors--how to write for the operating system, a practice we actively pursue to this day. Some claim we were simply lucky to get a good deal with IBM all those years ago. It was a good deal--no denying that. But to focus on just that ignores all the company has done since then, and even if true, it's not clear to me how benefiting from luck or making a good deal warrants government prosecution.
Yes, Microsoft has been fortunate to be the company selling the operating system at the outset of the personal computing explosion. But that good fortune came not just through circumstance. It came through recognizing how a free market works, that it requires constant attention to consumer needs if you are to survive. We understand that the consumer should make the decisions on what products win--not industry pundits, not envious competitors, and certainly not governments. And that is why no company can ever have an assured monopoly or control an industry with bad products. Consumers can bring a company to its knees the day that company loses sight of delivering the products they want. A competitor will rush through that opening with blinding speed.
To punish Microsoft by denying us the right to leverage the fruits of our competence, persistence, luck, and dedication to delivering the best products is something I trust any REASON reader would find horrifying. I trust any reader will also find repugnant the spectacle of billion-dollar companies whining to the government for protection from their competitors.
Scott Fallon
Group Manager
Developer Relations Group
Microsoft Corporation
Redmond, WA
As a computer professional, I enjoyed Virginia Postrel's insightful editorial about Microsoft's success and the failure of competitors like Apple. I still prefer Macs, but she is right that Apple has acted more like a monopolist in many ways than Microsoft. Killing the Mac clones was very anti-competitive.
By contrast, the PC market is wide open, and many operating systems besides Windows will run on them (OS/2, Solaris, and Linux, to name a few). Of course, these have fewer apps and will either cost more or take more effort than running Windows. But it is not true that the PC market has no choice.
The browser market is even more wide open. There is nothing in Internet Explorer to stop a user from downloading Netscape and using it as their browser forevermore, or vice versa. I currently run Netscape on my PC and Internet Explorer on my Mac, because I like it that way for now. The next release, I may change my mind. What matters is that I am free to choose either way.
The Justice Department is basing its case on the worn-out fallacy of helpless consumers unable to choose any option but the path of least resistance. This is a poor description of computer consumers, at best. Surely there are greater menaces to society than Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. How about Janet Reno, for starters?
Chris Struble
Boise, ID
A brilliant piece. I wish I wrote it. I posted a message to EvangeList, so that my closest 300,000 buddies will go read it. Kick butt!
Virginia Postrel is the first person I have read that has hit the nail squarely on the head. As a multimedia developer I had to deal with Apple from 1991 to 1994. I can say honestly that it was a total nightmare. And while I'm still using Apple hardware and don't wish them to go away, they deserve all the pain and misery they now have come to realize. And I agree that Microsoft deserves the success they enjoy.
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