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Redmond Justice, Round 2 (4/6/98)
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It's finally coming-- the second round of government-filed antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft. And the first round isn't even close to being finished yet. A Reuters story claims that the Department of Justice believes it's got enough evidence to build a new case by the end of this month.
The legalspeak at the center of the expected case is "illegal maintenance and extension" of Microsoft's de-facto monopoly on operating system software. In essence, we're not talking about anything significantly different than the charges in the current case, which alleges that the forced bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows 95 was a deliberate attempt to force Netscape out of the market and establish a browser monopoly as well. In fact, the only real difference is that the new case will explicitly include Windows 98 in its scope-- which could prove sticky for Microsoft, who plans to ship that particular product by May 15th. If Justice has its way, Microsoft will have to deal with the headache of possible temporary restrictions such as a required version of Windows 98 without Internet Explorer included. The new case is also expected to focus on "exclusionary contract terms" that Microsoft may have established with PC manufacturers and ISP's in an effort to force IE into the market while pushing Netscape out.
While we at AtAT are pleased as punch to see that we'll likely have tons of material for the show once the new case gets up and running, we're a little bummed about this "small potatoes" stuff. For instance, the DoJ already got a temporary injunction against Microsoft, preventing them from forcing PC companies to load IE on every Windows box. But no one opted to ship machines without IE once given the choice-- and if Microsoft hadn't been silly enough to fight the injunction in the first place, we probably would have heard no more about it. We say, c'mon, DoJ: Go for broke-- nail Microsoft on something big. We'll be glad to offer our services if you're not as conspiracy-minded as we are. For starters, there's their covert attempt to tag and catalog info on all Mac users (including credit card numbers, favorite websites, and shoe sizes) via hidden modules in Internet Explorer and Office 98...
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/6/98 episode: April 6, 1998: Laughing boy Steve Jobs woos the NAB, and manages to sound both charming and desperate in the same breath. Meanwhile, back in the labs, Apple may be working on a nifty new standard feature that will make Macs more popular in educational and corporate environments, and the Department of Justice inches ever closer to its next lawsuit against Big Brother Microsoft...
Other scenes from that episode: 602: I Want My QTTV (4/6/98) "We're dying to work with you." That's the message Steve Jobs gave to the National Association of Broadcasters today, as he delivered his keynote address at their convention. The inimitable Mr. Jobs made his best pitch for broadcasters to embrace Quicktime as the basis for their continuing transition from analog to digital video signals... 603: It's All The Net (4/6/98) Here's the scenario, hot-shot: You're a multi-billion-dollar computer manufacturer with a veritable lock on the educational market, when suddenly (say, over the course of, oh, several years) you make six or eight really serious mistakes and you find yourself losing that market steadily to the competition...
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