Microsoft in the head

Bill Gates is down for the count. His fall would reaffirm faith in theexistence of a just God, were it not for the fact that in the bestbuccaneering tradition, he has taken NASDAQ with him. The ripples of thefall have travelled as far as India, where infotech stock has come to beregarded as the market driver. Gates has hurt investors on a global scale,using sharp business practices that went out of style decades ago in thebusiness environment of the future. In the hearings, he has repeatedly saidthat his intention was to give his consumers access to better service. Inreality, he was out to deprive them of choice by cutting off access to hiscompetitors. He seems to have been confident that neither the courts nor theconsumers were techno-savvy enough to catch on.

To create his monopoly over information and entertainment services, Gatesfirst integrated his Internet Explorer browser with his Windows operatingsystem. Windows already has a near-monopoly in the operating systems market,so this meant that most of the computers rolling off the production linesworldwide would reach their consumers with Internet Explorer pre-loaded. Inturn, Internet Explorer was configured to point to the Microsoft Networksite. Because most people do not have the skills to change their computersettings, the site would enjoy tremendously high traffic, irrespective ofits quality. Not only would Gates have the highest Internet revenue in theworld, he would also be in a position to compel the information andentertainment giants to toe his line. But the consumer would have been thebiggest loser. Whether you wanted to see a movie, buy a car, auction anheirloom or just chat, you would have to go through his servers, and hewould take a cut from the proceeds.

Microsoft has always had a hate club because its entrepreneurial ethic iscontrary to that of the Internet. It is in the interest of all Internetentrepreneurs to increase the user base. This is facilitated by cheaperequipment, software and services. But Microsoft has been determinedlybuilding bigger and more expensive operating systems which require equallyexpensive hardware to run on. Its aggressive marketing has prevented thegrowth of far cheaper and more flexible options. But for the first timesince the birth of the Internet, Windows now faces a serious threat fromanother operating system. Linux, a flavour of UNIX written by a Nordicstudent in the US, is an open source8217; system, which any user is free todevelop upon. It is as though the maker of your Maruti had given you thetechnical backup to transform it into a Maserati at no extra cost. Theresult of open source is dirt cheap software and low operating costs. Linuxis showing up Microsoft in a very, very poor light. The future is aboutcheap mass computing, not the aggregation of all values into a few pairs ofhands in Seattle. All we can say about Microsoft is: serves 8217;em right. Theironly remaining use to the Internet revolution is to fall a little furtherthemselves, and pull overhyped dotcom valuations down to more realisticlevels.