Microsoft Corp, in probably its last public act before it either receives another antitrust lawsuit or manages to get Windows 98 out to personal computer makers gathered more than 40 of its closest hardware and software supporters together in New York yesterday to voice opposition to government regulation and demonstrate support for the operating system, which is due to ship to PC makers May 15 and on shelves June 25. The overriding message – or warning – was that if, for any reason, the government or states delays the shipment of Windows 98, the consumers of America are facing some sort of technological nuclear winter. Any day now either the Department of Justice (DoJ), the attorneys general of about a dozen states, or both, are expected to slap lawsuits on Microsoft alleging antitrust activities and attempt to delay the shipment of the operating system. Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates revealed that Windows 98 would cost the same price retail as Windows 95 did at its launch in August 1995 – $109. In an attempt to show that it was not just Microsoft integrating internet access and operating systems, he pointed out that IBM Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and Apple Computer Inc all have internet features in their operating systems and that Netscape Communications Corp likes to promote Communicator as a platform, rather than an application. And in a rather lame analogy, Gates said not letting Microsoft integrate browser technology would be like not allowing car manufacturers to ship cars with stereos included. The press gathering offered a peek at the product in question, with the company demonstrating Windows Explorer running inside a browser interface; the ability to make Netscape Communicator, or any other browser the default; the ability to customize the desktop with live data from the internet; and a WebTV for Windows application that enables PC users to watch television through the WebTV interface, provided they have a cable set-top box supporting the technology. Away from the contentious internet integration issue, Redmond was also at pains to promote Windows 98’s new hardware support features, in particular the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) support. After the demo came the hyperbole. Compaq Computer Corp CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer ‘thrilled’ the crowd with dire warnings about how any delay in Windows 98’s shipment would deprive the PC industry of its ability to sell tons of PCs to parents and students as they go back to school (no doubt if Windows 98 was even later than it already is, we could be talking about Christmas). Later Gates could not, or would not answer how, if the company does not have a monopoly, the OS, or more precisely, any delay in its delivery, was to have such a negative impact on the country as a whole, as Pfeiffer reckons. Moving on, Microsoft produced its very own Harvard professor, Greg Mankiw, no doubt to counter the one hired by the federal court hearing its antitrust case, and he used the example of the PC industry to contradict economist Thomas Robert Malthus’ late 18th century prediction that due to population explosion, the world would remain poor, backward and hungry. Mankiw, who at one point called Microsoft’s R&D budget generous (to whom, we don’t know) said it was hard to see why the DoJ would want to throw sand in the gears of human progress. Ted Johnson, CTO and co – founder of Visio Corp got up to put the independent software vendor’s viewpoint; CompUSA’s president and CEO James Halpin did the same for the retailers and Bill Krause, president and CEO of Storm put the hardware perspective. The demonstration left us wondering what all the fuss was about. The product barely did anything beyond Windows 95 from what we saw (Microsoft claims it fires up applications on average 36% faster than its predecessor) and the USB and DVD support would be more of a surprise if it was not included. But no doubt there is more to it than can be crammed into a 15 minute demo, so Redmond gets the benefit of the doubt as far as the technology goes. But by concluding his speech with innovation is progress and progress is growth for America Gates helps you realize yesterday had more to do with Washington than Redmond, and very little to do with technology.
