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