On page 12, we begin to see the thrust of their argument. They start by warning that the “very lack of sophisticated end users renders our society at risk to a threat that is becoming more prevalent and more sophisticated.” With breathtaking speed the authors then move to pointing the blame finger at Microsoft, presumably a more favorable villain than the end user. Page 12 concludes, “Wise governments are those able to distinguish that which must be tolerated as it cannot be changed from that which must be changed as it cannot be tolerated. The reapportionment of risk and responsibility through regulatory intervention embodies that wisdom in action.”
This argument is highly reminiscent of the argument to break up the long distance carriers in the mid to late 90s. In 1998, Gene Kimmelman, then co-director of the Washington office consumer's union argued, "Two years ago, the federal government enacted a law designed to crack local telephone monopolies and bring consumers the benefits of competition. By sweeping away decades of regulation, Washington thought it was paving the way for a free-for-all among the Baby Bells, long-distance carriers, cable operators and other telecommunications providers. Instead, the urge to merge has overwhelmed the compulsion to compete. Most people are still waiting for lower phone rates and better service, while the nation’s telephone giants seem intent on vying to see which one can become the biggest the fastest.”
Further bolstering Gene’s point, one has only to view our European neighbors and their success with cellphone standards, compared to the US deregulated equivalent which has provided us with cellphones that may work at our homes but fail three miles away at the grocery store.
In short, allegedly wise governments often make very bad decisions that serve to hurt consumers (i.e. the end user) far more than it helps them. Let us hope history plays a more important role in the government’s eyes than it does in the authors' eyes.
Much of the remainder of the report focuses on Microsoft’s rapid growth and the tightly integrated applications they have created, noting at one point that “This integration is not the norm and it is not essential.” Perhaps it is not essential, but one overlooked reason has nothing to do with Microsoft’s alleged desire to dominate. The fact is, their products quite often solve problems the user is facing. This, in fact, is the key to marketing success and it is a key to Microsoft’s success. Tag-based word processing applications failed to thrive because they were tag-based. Is it really a crime that Microsoft had the foresight to introduce a graphical-based, mouse-driven competitor? Predictably, the author’s make much of the Internet Explorer browser dominance they allege results from tight integration but overlook Netscape’s slow adoption of W3C-approved HTML tags, Mozilla’s sluggish performance, and, once again, user preference.
