Did you hear about the woman who bought a cup of coffee at a Macdonald's drive-up window, placed the cup between her legs, drove off, and then scalded herself when she stopped suddenly? She sued Macdonald's for damages, stating that the company was at fault for making its coffee too hot.

So, okay, maybe Macdonald's did make the coffee too hot. But if you stick a cup of coffee between your legs while driving, who's too blame if you get scalded? What's happened to the notion of taking responsibility for your own actions? It seems everyone wants to be a victim, everyone wants to find someone else to blame for their own woes.

DOJ versus MS

You can see the same thing happening in the ongoing battle being waged by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against that renowned Prince of Darkness, Microsoft.

Evidently, Microsoft is guilty of such heinous crimes as:

It's the last two of these terrible 'crimes' that have landed Microsoft in hot water. It's not because of any outcry from users that the DOJ started this fight. No, it was the bleating of Microsoft's business competitors – most notably Netscape, Oracle and Sun – that led to an all-out assault on Microsoft's next steps in evolving its operating systems.

Who's the winner?

And it's not users who are going to be the winners if the DOJ succeeds in hobbling Windows 95 and Windows 98. Nope, once again it'll be the companies that can't compete in the marketplace and need the crutch of government support who'll gain most from such a victory.

Oh, I'm not saying that Microsoft is pure and innocent and that it shouldn't be watched. It's clear that Microsoft is a company that doesn't hesitate to play very tough indeed at times, and that small companies in particular need to watch their rear ends when dealing with it.

But let's face it: if Netscape had put as much effort into its technical and marketing work as it has into trying to stir up trouble for Microsoft, the company would be in a far more competitive position nowadays than it is. Instead, Netscape has let itself slide while it looked for salvation through regulation and injunction. Netscape has morphed itself into one giant techno-victim, with a big "Not responsible!" sign as its logo.

In the process of crying to big brother Netscape is also doing its best to spoil it all for users.

What's in it for us?

What's in it for us, as users, if Microsoft has to cripple its operating system, leave out whole slabs of new technology, and spend extra on developing multiple versions to satisfy DOJ requirements?

You could answer, "There's choice."

But that's silly: there's choice now. You don't want Internet Explorer as your browser? Don't use it! I'm running Windows 98 right now, and have no fewer than nine browsers installed (I've just completed a review of alternatives to IE 4 and Communicator 4, hence the browser proliferation). I always have Communicator and IE 4, at a minimum, available so I can test my Web site in different browsers. They work in complete harmony.

Let's stop trying to put the responsibility for our own choices onto someone else. We have choice now.

So, if Microsoft's hobbling won't give us greater choice, what will it give us? It'll give us higher prices (this is all costing Microsoft money, and we know who eventually has to foot the bill). It'll give us longer waits between upgrades. It'll make it harder to use the full-featured version of Windows. It'll give us software whose design is mandated by a government bureaucracy, instead of by users' desires.

Taking responsibility

It's about time the DOJ started listening to users instead of those with vested anti-Microsoft interests. The level of satisfaction with Microsoft products is phenomenal. Sure, we all know dozens of areas where each Microsoft product could be improved, but on the whole the company makes great products. It spends thousands of hours listening to users and creating products in response.

I'd much rather see Microsoft devoting more time to responding directly to users' requests and desires than having to deal with the whinings of incompetent or frustrated competitors. Let's put Microsoft on trial for failing to deliver a Windows 95 update disc. Let's put Microsoft on trial for not being able to make Excel 97 work properly even after multiple runs at fixing the recalculation bug. Let's put Microsoft on trial for making FrontPage 98 so flaky that it falls over half-dead if you lose an Internet connection while you're working on a page.

But let's not put Microsoft on trial for its competitors' failings. It's an enormous irony that in the land that invented free enterprise it is deemed a crime to succeed too well.

© 1998  Rose Vines

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