Microsoft Rival: Save The Future
Microsoft's monopoly on desktop operating systems puts the company in a position to shut down emerging Internet services like mobile messaging, an executive of rival Sun Microsystems said Tuesday.
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun senior vice president, said a court should impose antitrust penalties on Microsoft requested by nine states to ensure the company does not use its Windows operating system to shut out new services.
Sun, Microsoft and several other companies are developing Web services that would allow customers to access programs, messages, targeted sales pitches and other data from any Internet-connected device such as cell phones, interactive television boxes and personal computers.
Schwartz cited a report last year that Microsoft kept people who use non-Microsoft Web browsers from accessing Microsoft sites. Microsoft claimed that those browsers were not advanced enough to read the pages.
"Whether or not this was intentional," Schwartz said, "it demonstrates the kind of power Microsoft can wield when it chooses to do so."
While questioning Schwartz, Microsoft lawyer Steven Holley produced an internal Sun document showing that Schwartz said in 1998 that Sun should do a better job of integrating its programs as Microsoft does.
Much of the antitrust case has centered around Microsoft's practice of bolting different products together — like its operating system and Web browser — in an attempt to shut out competition.
"Without integration, you can't bundle. Without bundling, we're dead in the water as a software company," Schwartz wrote in the document. "Our current performance is appalling."
Schwartz explained the document by saying he was frustrated with Sun's slow pace and that his plan would have ensured fair competition.
"Microsoft was creating an environment in which we had to respond," Schwartz said.
The states want U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to force Microsoft to create a stripped-down version of its flagship Windows software that could incorporate competitors' features. The states also want Microsoft to divulge the blueprints for its Internet Explorer browser.
The federal government and nine other states settled their antitrust case against Microsoft last year for lesser penalties.
The original judge in the case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ordered Microsoft broken into two companies after concluding that it illegally stifled competitors. An appeals court reversed the breakup order and appointed Kollar-Kotelly to determine a new punishment.
Microsoft asked Kollar-Kotelly to throw out much of Schwartz's testimony about Web services, as those products — which are in their infancy now — were not mentioned explicitly in the first phase of the case.
Kollar-Kotelly, following a well-established pattern, postponed a decision. She said she was skeptical of Microsoft's argument that Schwartz's testimony didn't rise to an allegation of new antitrust violations but at the same time consisted of allegations that could not be addressed in the penalty hearing.
"I will note that Microsoft sounds a little schizophrenic," she said.
Kollar-Kotelly has not thrown out any testimony about new devices or technology, to the frustration of Microsoft lawyers. Microsoft wants to keep the case confined to the consumer desktop computer market.
The judge — who has said that any remedy should be forward-looking — ultimately may decide that the penalties should not apply to those markets. But until she rules, the states have ample time to persuade her otherwise.
States that rejected the government's settlement with Microsoft and are continuing to pursue the antitrust case are Iowa, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Kansas, Florida, Minnesota and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.
By D. Ian Hopper