Feds Stop Seeking Microsoft Breakup

[David P. Schwartz]

Rusty Carruth wrote:

> >
> > The state attorneys general still have their own case against MS.
> > Hopefully, they will not fold so easily.
> >
> > > http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010906/tc/microsoft_antitrust_32.html
> > >
> > > I guess you can buy the justice .......
>
> Actually, I don't know if I'd say they are folding yet.  I want to see
> what sort of relief they push for.  I don't think that a breakup is
> the best solution.  I think they should be forced to open source
> windblows.  Or made to help pay for companies to port their applications
> from windblows to another OS.
>
> rc

Somehow, methinks that dropping this part of the suit will make it more
difficult for MS to negotiate any kind of appeal.  They're sorta
backed into a corner now.  Between the Korean firm that just filed to block
sales of XP, the EU action charging MS with illegal
bundling, and a US District and Appellate court that are all basically
saying the same thing, it's going to be difficult for MS to
create any more diversions in an attempt to evade the issues.

I have to agree -- a break-up is not a useful solution.  What's needed is
to stop their growth by accretion of other technology under
the guise of "we're only providing what customers are asking for"!


So, in the spirit of the MS Veep who implied "Microsoft Windows is NOT a
cancer" (even though each successive product release gobbles up
more otherwise healthy companies and leaves them sucking dust after a
bankruptcy auction), I thought it might be fun if we were to come
up with our own list of "Things that Microsoft could absorb into the next
OS release that customers are demanding [and that would put
another company out of business]".  The first critical measure is simple:
is there a market for the item?  A healthy market implies
there is LOTS customer demand.  So here's my initial list:

* Add the ability to generate PDF files from anything (as a print driver)
* Add native PostScript support and a ton of fonts
* Give FrontPage Express the ability to produce Flash 5 presentations
* Add full (up to 350kbps stereo) MP3 encoding and Dolby Digital Surround
5.1 encoding into the Windows Sound Recorder
* Beef up Windows Paint so it offers features on par with the latest
versions of Adobe PhotoShop or Corel Draw
* Include a video editing tool supporting professional level "plug-n-play"
editing of video streams in conjunction with any
FireWire-based DV video camera on the market; make sure it uses a format
that's incompatible with all the software produced by current
video camera vendors and that it does not have import/export ability with
any other format
* Incorporate compressed archive (a la WinZip) support directly into
Windows Explorer
* A full-featured FTP client

This seems like a good start.  These should siphon off a good 2-3 Billion
dollars from other companies and put lots of them on the
auction block!  Then MS can scarf up their IP portfolios for a song and put
the rest of these company's competitors out of business.
Finally, with all this incredible "value add", they'll triple the licensing
fee for a basic Windows installation, and tell you if you
don't like it, you can just buy this stuff from another vendor!  (if you
can find one...)

-David Schwartz