IP: Fwd: Windows XP: Bundling no big deal, says Microsoft

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: AcmeWriter () aol com
> Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 22:01:37 EDT
> Subject: Windows XP: Bundling no big deal, says Microsoft
> To: dave () farber net
>
> Dave -
>
> Thanks for taking the time to talk with me for my story regarding Windows XP
> and how Microsoft views the bundling issue. I've included an excerpt and a
> link to my story below.
>
> Connie Guglielmo
> Editor-at-Large
> Interactive Week
>
>
> Microsoft: What's The Big Deal?
> By Connie Guglielmo, Interactive Week
> August 20, 2001 9:12 AM ET
>
> The bundling controversy over Windows XP has been blown "way out of
> proportion" by a few prominent companies who don't like the fact that
> Microsoft is adding technologies to its operating system that compete with
> their applications, the company says.
>
> It may seem like cold consolation to Microsoft competitors, but Greg
> Sullivan, lead product manager for Windows XP, said there are "thousands" of
> developers creating applications for the Windows OS and the number of
> technologies Microsoft chooses to add to its OS is quite small in comparison.
>
> "If you look at the PC industry as a whole and the work that Microsoft puts
> into supporting third-party innovation and development on the Windows
> platform, the set of companies and individuals working on innovative tools
> for the platforms so vastly outweigh the opportunities that companies [lost]
> because things became part of the OS," Sullivan said in a recent interview
> about Microsoft's OS strategy. " … The debate is way out of proportion 
> to the
> reality."
>
> But it it's more than just a few prominent companies who are unhappy with
> Windows XP, which will be officially released October 25. Now that a federal
> appeals court has upheld a ruling branding Microsoft an abusive monopoly, the
> attorneys general for 18 states are calling for an injunction to stop
> distribution of the latest version of Windows until the government can
> examine whether Microsoft's bundling of heretofore standalone technologies
> into XP - including its digital media player and instant messaging technology
> - is anticompetitive.
>
> "You decide to put something in the OS when you want to bury it alive," said
> one computer industry insider, who asked not to be named. "The whole game is
> what you show to the external application programmers. Once you bury
> something in the OS, once you start thinking of things as being part of the
> OS, you can keep the [application programming interfaces] secret and only
> make them internal to the company. That keeps external programmers from
> taking advantage of those features and developing new applications."
>
> Still, not everyone believes that distribution of Windows XP should be
> halted. Giga Information analyst Rob Enderle says many companies, including
> the major PC makers, are counting on the new OS to help boost fourth quarter
> sales. He believes the government should instead focus on the next version of
> Windows under development, codenamed Longhorn.
>
> Dave Farber, a computer scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who
> testified as an witness for the government during Microsoft's antitrust
> trial, said he doesn't want to see the government or court systems getting
> involved in software design. "But I have no objection at all if the
> government says, 'Your license agreements are wrong and illegal and we won't
> let you release your program with those licensing arrangements,'" he added.
>
> As it has throughout its antitrust battles with the government, Microsoft
> maintains that it is simply fighting for its right to continue innovating the
> monopoly-making operating system that has helped it become the world's most
> successful software company...
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2805398,00.html



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