Re: Copyright upholds Monopoly,was: Microsoft's OS competitors

Mark Lemley <MLEMLEY[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> writes:
>
> Mario Heilmann <a3[_at_]a3.com> writes:
> >
> > How come the anti trust probe went nowhere? Why don't they create
> > exemptions to copyright protection to break up this monopoly? Why do
> > they not force Microsoft to publish, COMPLETELY, and in advance, all
> > operating system specifications, and to prohibit the use of undocumented
> > system calls by any application software. If the specifications were
> > complete and exhaustive, reverse engineering is unnecessary.
>
> The real "problem" of the Microsoft monopoly (if you think it is a
> problem; I'm not yet fully convinced) is simply not one that antitrust
> law is equipped to address. Microsoft controls the OS market not so
> much because of anticompetitive conduct (though there has been some of
> that), but because the market is characterized by network externalities
> sufficiently strong that everyone wants what everyone else is buying.
> Antitrust law can stop the anticompetitive conduct, but I don't believe
> that would eliminate Microsoft's monopoly.
>
> Requiring compatible interfaces is more attractive, but it is hard to
> see how you could do it without an antitrust lawyer looking over the
> shoulder of each of Microsoft's programmers.

Actually, the problem is two-fold:

Microsoft can use their margin in other areas (applications) to pay for their OS development. That means that a competitor in the OS market can't effectively compete on price. Further, they can release new versions of the applications that only run on the latest version of their OS, making their competitor play "catch-up".

Microsoft can use their domination of the OS market to leverage their applications. They may know two releases in advance what new features will be added (and prepare their code to support it.) Their application developers can (and do) ask for additions to the OS to speed up their applications. And in some cases, these additions aren't made public, so Microsoft applications have a "built in" edge over competing applications. And in some cases, Microsoft announces functionality to outside developers and then fails to mention that it has been delayed a release or three. This, combined with releasing beta versions of the OS to outside vendors later than to internal applications developers, helps assure that Microsoft can release versions of their applications that take advantage of new OS features before their competition.

Put these factors together, and it becomes really hard to break Microsoft's application or OS near-monopoly.

One of the proposals was for Microsoft to put up a "Great Wall", and all communications out of the OS group would have been public. So if the OS group wants to tell the Microsoft Office Group about the new functions, or provide an early alpha-release copy of the software, it would have to make it available to everyone else publishing software for Windows. And the "wall" would have applied to financials as well, so Microsoft would have to price the OS based on their cost to develop, produce, and support it, rather than subsidizing it through other operations. And I suspect you could implement a "Great Wall" scheme without having a lawyer looking over everyone's shoulder. Just offer a bounty on proof that they are using undocumented calls in their applications, and have someone audit their books.  

Anyway,

Keith Graham
skg[_at_]sadr.com Received on Tue Apr 29 1997 - 15:04:18 GMT