IP: Re: Replies to DoJ's Joel Klein and breaking up Microsoft

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

[ I agree djf]

> Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 14:06:38 -0400
> From: Lee McKnight <lmcknigh () tufts edu>
> Subject: Re: IP: Replies to DoJ's Joel Klein and breaking up Microsoft
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
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>
> Dave,
>
> Saying there was no innovation at AT&T is nonsense; where did the 
> transistor and
> Unix aka Linux these days among other cool things come from?  Saying the IBM
> anti-trust case had no impact is also nonsense; the DOJ and European 
> competition
> policy authorities forced IBM to stop jerking everybody else in the industry
> around with vaporware product releases to freeze buyers, and by making them
> release their API specs so competitors could interface with IBM products. 
> The pc
> revolution comes straight out of political and legal actions in Washington and
> Brussels.
>
> Microsoft could easily get off the hook by promising to pull an IBM or 
> Intel, that
> is, by promising to behave in a responsible manner given their potential 
> to squash
> competition advertently or inadvertently.   Instead, Bill and Steve insist 
> they
> will remain boys behaving badly, so they are getting a possibly very 
> painful slap
> not across the wrist but upside the head.
>
> Those counting on Bush to pull Microsoft out of the fire are again forgetting
> history - the Reagan White House would not touch the IBM or AT&T cases for 
> fear of
> the repercussions, and instead delegated to the DOJ antitrust chief to 
> transform
> the telecoms and computer industries. For AT&T, a sword through the firm 
> was the
> instrument of choice; for IBM, only the threat was needed to gain the desired
> result. Want to bet that a Bush administration would not act the same as
> Reagan's?   Now Microsoft has a choice: do they want to die by the sword 
> or grow
> up?
>
> Lee McKnight