Wrestling with the monopoly

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Trade secrets

Jeremy Allison, co-creator of Samba, records that "In the days when Novell Netware dominated the file serving world Microsoft was a great supporter of standards. They published the specifications of their own protocols (then called Server Message Block, or SMB) and supported implementations on other platforms than Windows," but once Netware was defeated by Windows NT "their attitudes changed, and the flow of information stopped. Proprietary modifications to core protocols like the Kerberos authentication protocol followed, and these changes were treated as trade secrets, patented if possible, and only released under restrictive non-disclosure agreements, if released at all."

Netware and WordPerfect may have been the better products in their time, but like the Netscape web browser and the Real music player, the innovative product ultimately lost out to the product that came direct from the operating system vendor. By accident or design Microsoft's ownership of the desktop has translated into ownership of many of the important tools that depend upon the desktop.

When Microsoft purchased Internet Explorer (IE) from Spyglass, Netscape dominated the browser market. Microsoft solved the problem the easy way, by giving the browser away free, persuading OEMs to package IE with Windows, and by 'integrating' the browser into the OS. Giving IE away free cut Netscape's revenue stream and ensured a browser monopoly for Microsoft. IE was far from perfect but, after the fall of Netscape, there was a five year lull of no competition or innovation between the release of IE 6 and the release of IE 7, which in turn was provoked by the inevitable rise of the open source Firefox browser. Similar tales can be told about Microsoft's less than enthusiastic support for the cross-platform Java framework, and the subsequent arrival of the monolithic .NET framework.

Unlike the wider network where there is genuine competition, the desktop has not been subject to open standards, and this has had a deleterious effect on competition and innovation. This is the most important outcome of the European Court's recent decision to uphold the European Commission's judgment against Microsoft. While the mainstream press focused on the record fine imposed on Microsoft, the more engaging and decisive part of the judgment was the Commission's insistence that Microsoft publish its proprietary protocols to enable interoperability.

Thanks to the EU, and contrary to much media speculation from both sides of the water, we can now hope for a positive expansion of innovation and competition on the desktop. All the evidence suggests that control of all aspects of the market by one company is neither healthy nor conducive to innovation or competition. If all network protocols and "extensions" to network protocols were treated as trade secrets, there would be no networks and no meaningful shared protocols.

A level playing field

The long-term effects of the PC revolution have not always been beneficial or profitable for the organisation. The office suite on the PC long ago spread from its original preserve on the secretarial desk to the desktop of every worker in the company, sometimes with detrimental effects. Office suites have their virtues, but their overuse as a means of intradepartmental communications, and the working practices and culture that they promote, can get in the way of productive work and, paradoxically, increase the bureaucratic overload.

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