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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 1997)
BARB CHURCHILL is a graduate student in wood winds performance and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist. A bumper sticker I saw a few years ago in Milwaukee said it all: Resistance is futile. We are Microsoft. You will be assimilated. When I told my friend about this sticker, he laughed and laughed. “Exactly!” he said. One experience with Microsoft really upset him. You see, my friend needs to read documents off the Internet for a class. The documents he needs are run by Microsoft’s oper ating system - which he doesn’t have. Microsoft refuses to allow “its” documents to be read by other com puter servers. Therefore, my friend was unable to use these documents. Now, for most people, the solu tion would be to use a Microsoft-run computer system at school. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is loaded with them. Just go to any computer lab on campus, and you’ll find Microsoft programs. There is little alternative. However, my friend didn’t want to do that He wanted to use his com puter. And, up until about one to 1 'A years ago, that is exactly what he would have done. In the “good old days,” you could pull up any comput er program off the Internet by any type of computer. Yet now, Microsoft “encodes” its documents, so the company will not run unless you have Windows on your computer. My friend has an old Apple Macintosh. He loves it. He doesn’t want to give it up. He certainly won’t give it up in order to give a multibil lion-dollar-a-year company any of his hard-earned money - especially after this incident. Now, it’s a matter of principle. And, wonder of wonders, the U.S. government agrees with him. The government has finally heard the pleas of the American con sumer. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said, “Microsoft is unlawfully taking advantage of its Windows monopoly to protect and extend that monopoly.” Reno is involved because of complaints like the one made by my friend. So many people are upset by problems induced by Microsoft that the Justice Department had to act. Otherwise, Microsoft would contin ue to roll over everyone. In 1995, Microsoft signed an agreement with the U.S. government, promising that “Microsoft shall not enter into any license agreement that by its terms prohibits or restricts the OEM’s licensing, sale or distribution of any non-Microsoft Operating System Software product.” However, by refusing to allow documents run by Microsoft to be read by competing Web browsers, Microsoft has violate the terms of this agreement. And, as usual, the company expected to get away with this because the computer industry is so new that it can be hard to define the line between “competitive” and “stifling” One of the few companies to make any money competing against Microsoft in any arena is Netscape, a small, start-up company that makes a popular Web browser called Netscape Navigator Gold. Netscape has made inroads in Microsoft’s Web browser business by undercutting its price. Yet, Microsoft all of a sudden decided to give its Web browser, the Microsoft Explorer, away. (Microsoft has $8 billion in liquid assets. It can afford to give stuff away from time to time.) But, that wasn’t the worst of it. Microsoft is allowed to give as much stuff away as it wants. The Justice Department can’t stop that, nor should it try. What it is trying to stop is Microsoft’s insistence on installing its Web browser, and only its Web browser, on computers that run its Windows 95 operating system. (Virtually every computer made in the last five years uses Windows 95 as its disk operating system, because it’s user friendly.) However, by forc ing people to take the Web browser whether they want it or not, Microsoft is using its considerable clout to force consumers into taking its products, rather than just letting them buy them. This action “stepped over the line” and proved that Microsoft is indeed stifling the com petition. What’s even worse than Microsoft forcing ail of these com panies to use its Web browser when they use the Microsoft software is this: As my friend found out, Microsoft has come up with a way to make its documents incompatible with Netscape. This means that if you want to pull up these documents, you have two choices: 1. Go to Unix, and pull them up the long way. Or, 2. Buy Microsoft’s Web browser, and give them your hard-earned money. This is unacceptable to the U.S. gov ernment, and should be unacceptable to us as consumers as well. This is why other companies don’t even try to compete against Microsoft. They don’t have the money to buck Microsoft’s monop oly. In its annual report for fiscal year 1997, Microsoft stated that its com petitors included Apple, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corporation and Sun Microsystems. However, only Sun Microsystems is = worth $100 million or more. The rest might be worth $35 million put together (counting only their com puter divisions). That may seem like a lot of money, but it’s only about 10 percent of what Microsoft is worth. Microsoft is incredibly dominant. It has more than 90 percent of the computer market locked up. It’s worth more than $200 billion dollars. It has that unheard-of $8 billion liq uid assets. Let’s compare it with another for mer “industry giant.” IBM earned $ 147,766 profit last year, while Microsoft earned $3.45 billion. Microsoft’s other competitors just aren’t in the same league - if Microsoft is the major leagues, IBM is the rookie league. There is no way it can compete. Only a few companies have gained a respectable market share by going against Microsoft. One of the few is Sun Microsystems, which came up with the popular new Java computing language. Microsoft is currently being sued by Sun for try ing to assimilate Java. (What a sur prise, eh?) The Sherman Anti-Trust Act is supposed to take care of little prob lems like monopolies. The Sherman Act was aimed toward stopping abu sive practices of big companies such as Standard Oil. The U.S. Congress of 1890 wanted to spur free enter prise and competition. They didn’t want what amounted to “excessive private power” from any company. The Sherman Act worked in the case of AT&T, railroads and big oil, but it isn’t working against Microsoft. Why? Perhaps because the computer industry is so new. It is hard to tell “competition” from monopoly unless a company does something egregiously bad. Now, Microsoft finally has. Between the lawsuit by Sun Microsystems, and the Justice Department probe, Microsoft is finally getting what it deserves. There must be an end to Microsoft’s unfair and monopolistic practices. At the very least, Microsoft must make its documents compatible with competing Web browsers, such as Netscape. Microsoft should be forced to diver sify, much as AT&T was in the mid to late 1980s. Then, consumers might have real choice, low prices aiid great technology. But don’t hold your breath. It’s money that matters Microsoft monopolizes market with Web browser TODD MUNSON is a junior broadcasting major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist, “That’s great It starts with a wave break Hot sloshes with the ocean cold Massive rainstorms, dead plank ton Hopefully Lenny Bruce is not afraid for this one either.” If my poorly composed REM sendup didn’t help, I was referring to the most hyped-up weather event of the century. No, not Steve Willey passing gas, but dreaded El Nino. For the past few months, reports on El Nino have been everywhere, from a special pullout section in USA Today to the cover of Newsweek, preaching Armageddon of biblical proportions, to, most recently, the washed-up morning show host on 101.9 The Sludge, rant ing about the hype. What is El Nino, you might ask? Allow me to explain. Basically, El Nino is a random weather phenomenon that is as strange and mysterious as a monkey with four asses. El Nifio (named by some Peruvian fishermen hundreds of years ago) is a regularly occurring climatic change that happens every two to seven years. It begins when the warm water, between South America and Indonesia, mixes with the cold water north of the equator. Aside from really confusing the ocean’s fish, the warmer ocean pumps more energy and moisture into the atmosphere, altering wind and rainfall patterns around the world. It can cause both drought and heavy rains and, in southern Africa, it is expected to lead to a dry spell beginning later this year. This antici pated drought has already caused the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to plum Oh no, El Nino People on West Coast take storm warnings in stride met more than 2,000 points. The rainy part of El Nino wreaks havoc along the coastline of South America. The majority of the rain fall, though, hovers above the epi center of natural disaster - southern California. With a 50-50 chance of massive tidal waves, flooding and mud slides, the media in southern California have latched on to El Nino tighter than the Iron Sheik’s “Camel Clutch” and are now the harbinger of doom. An example of the media’s obses sion with El Nino can be found at the Web site of the Los Angles CBS affiliate Channel 2000. (It’s actually Channel 2, but they probably think that Channel 2000 sounds cooler.) On its El Nino Web site, it has every thing from safe-driving techniques during El Nino period to the skinny on sandbags. And it’s provided tran scripts of every story it’s run about El Nino - 16 since May 5. The nifti est part of this site, though, is that you can download movies and ani mated images documenting the pro gression of El Nino. Yee haw! Imagine the fun Channel 2000 viewers are having while they watch as impending death lurches ever closer. In the L. A. area, there are more than 10 million people. Of those 10 million, I know one. So, when no one was looking, I borrowed the DN phone and fired off a call out to Malibu to my friend Guy, who was recently cast as the young 4-LOM in the new Star Wars trilogy, to see what his El Nino preparations were. “People out here are really annoyed with the whole El Nino fiasco. They say all this messed-up stuff is gonna happen, but nothing has yet There’s just a bunch of sand bags everywhere, the beach has a wall in the middle of it, and people keep posting El Nifio warnings everywhere,” he said. “So, have you practiced any emergency drills yet?” I asked. “No, and that’s probably going to lead to our downfall. / Californians have a really / small attention span and / '\ are too stupid to care. / V / Since nothing has hap- / / \l pened after months of j hype, I think everyone ( / NA around here has for- / / //7 \ gotten about it,” he / / / /1 replied. * j / Guy then went on ■ / |j*% saying, “I think that j 111 when a landslide sweeps us out in the ocean, . j g we’ll all have wished that we had pre- j j jjjg pared for this a bit nj\ more.” ¥*vl\ / I hung up the $r\ \ phone fearing for HI Guy’s life. El Nino ** sounds like pretty / serious business. I f// S then remembered If/ Bob, a top moun- If / tain bike racer If f who lives in ■ /rjjf / Lincoln, went to \ff I /^t Chico State during 1Ufjs fjrs the El Nino of Wf %f/ 1983.1 called him /g up and expected an V * m action-packed tale of a person’s will to sur- 7 vive. / VI My mentioning \ W of the El Nino, \ \ caused him to wax \ \ poetic, not about dis- \ " aster, but about the surf. \ . “Dude-bra the surf \ A was just insane. Waves V were as tall as the pier. I \ about flunked the entire semester ‘cuz I couldn’t drag \ myself away from the beach.” Isolated here in Nebraska, we have nothing to worry about If anything, El Nino promises a mild winter. Out in California, the surf will probably be up, and rich folk’s homes will turn into sleds as they slide toward the ocean, something that seems to happen anyway, El Nino or not. My prediction: In a few weeks some scandal of O. J. propor tions will strike i L.A. and the hype will blow 0s i away faster Y I than r\\/ Macaulay \Y Culkin’s post Y\ pubescent career. \ Matt Haney/DN