The trials of Microsoft Analysis/Commentary The U.S. government has been in hot pursuit of Microsoft, on and off, for roughly 10 years. What's that all about? Microsoft's rise and undoing appears to have little to do with providing service and a lot to do with bullying. Perhaps this basic moral failure underlies the government's attitude toward the software giant. Microsoft provides a service as a by-product of its many and often apparently multifarious activities. Its success seems to demand the kind of autocratic rule that dictators aspire to -- in other words, total control. Even though Microsoft brings together in one team some of the best software programmers on planet Earth and its people have done service by spurring enhanced computer use, knowledge expertise, and, of course, wealth, they have also stolen too many ideas, brought their power to bear on other businesses unfairly, and seem to want to outlast their days of standard setting and bearing. From the company's point of view, it can't be faulted. Is there a morality to war? Is there room for democracy in business? Of course not. Microsoft came into being when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the corporation in 1975 to promote a computer language called BASIC. Later, the company bought the rights to DOS (disk operating system software), which was bundled with IBM PCs and PC clones. Finally, it struck the mother lode by adapting a patentless program -- Windows -- to the Intel microchip environment, hence instituting the Wintel empire. Microsoft went public in 1986, and has consistently earned 25 cents of profit on each dollar. Along the way, it borrowed some of its best ideas -- the mouse, application software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access), and Internet Explorer -- from its competitors. Like an empire, Microsoft brings culture to the untutored masses. Also like an empire, it creates an unhealthy homogeneity that fosters the forces that destroy it from within. Microsoft sees law as a means to do business, not as rules that apply to all. And it sees business logic as an opportunity to corner markets, leverage power, and to say one thing and do another. It thrives on paradoxes, and won't be faulted when discovered exploiting them. The final paradox may be that, if it remains intact, Microsoft might eventually turn out to be counterproductive to the growth of technology. Neither AT&T nor Standard Oil dissolved or disappeared in the wake of their break-ups. Bell Labs still thrives, even spun off and owned by Lucent. Microsoft's fears are probably the fears of arrogant schoolboys who, suspended, know that their days of carousing are over. November 29, 2000