By Andy McCue, 25 March 2004 10:58
NEWS As the dust settles on the European Commission's landmark €497m ruling, which forces Microsoft to ship a stripped-down version of Windows without Media Player and to open up its source code to rivals, the debate is turning to whether it will stand up on appeal and whether it will have any real impact on Microsoft.
We asked the silicon.com CIO Jury whether in five years' time Microsoft will be developing and selling its software in a different way as a result of the ruling.
Not surprisingly for an issue that has polarised opinion, the CIO Jury was divided with five saying 'yes' and seven saying 'no'.
Among those in the 'yes' camp was Pete Smith, director of IT and telecoms at Inmarsat. "I think Microsoft will turn to software rental as the only way to get access to their software. Licensing checks will be real time, every time the software is used," he said.
Bill Gibbons, CIO of Abbey, said Microsoft has already started that changing the way it operates. "I believe we will see iterative models of customer purchase agreement and support models in this timeframe as Microsoft becomes more responsive to customer requirements and to the emerging competition in both operating systems and software," he said.
The EC ruling will open the floodgates for other investigations, according to Frank Coyle, IT director at John Menzies Distribution. "Let's not forget that it was a similar ruling from the USA that prevented IBM from continuing its dominance of the market and, thus, giving Microsoft its opportunity in the first place," he said.
Others were more sceptical about the decision and the EC. David Jemitus, head of IT for the Government Planning Portal, said: "I think Microsoft will continue to find ways to leverage its existing products to lock people in to Microsoft and will also continue to try to block out the opposition by using its near monopoly status on the desktop."
Kevin Lloyd, CTO at Barclays, said he could see the competition situation occurring again within the next five years. "I liken this to the dispute over browser and the stance that Microsoft takes, which is it only attempts to put the customer first and then the monopoly question arises."
The situation is probably best summed up by Phil Pavitt, CIO at NTL, who said that in every part of its strategy apart from security, Microsoft has made the world fit round it. "And why not when you are that successful," he said.
Today's CIO Jury wasÂ…
Jeremy Acklam, IT Director, Virgin Trains
Dr Stuart Brough, Director of IT Services, University of Strathclyde
Nick Clark, Director of IT Services, Tower Hamlets College
Frank Coyle, IT Director, John Menzies Distribution
Bill Gibbons, CIO, Abbey
David Jemitus, Head of IT, Government Planning Portal
John Keeling, Director of Computer Services, John Lewis Partnership
Kevin Lloyd, CTO, Barclays
Nick Masterson-Jones, IT Programmes Director, BACS
Phil Pavitt, CIO, NTL
JP Rangaswami, Global CIO, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
Pete Smith, Director of IT and Telecoms, Inmarsat
If you are a CIO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and want to be part of silicon.com's exclusive CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop us a line at editorial@silicon.com
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Angus Doyle
I have to stand by Microsoft. The ruling by the eu was totally unjustified. Microsoft as a company have done exceptionally well. They should be applauded not condemed. If only we were all as lucky to run such a fantastic and profitable company.
2. Simon
Angus Doyle writes : "Microsoft as a company have done exceptionally well. They should be applauded not condemed."
Well, yes, they have done VERY well, but not by fair means. They have repeatdly used the same tactics previously used by Standard Oil and IBM to eliminate competitive products from the market. They did NOT get where they are now by making the best mousetrap around, they got where they are by making it difficult as they can to use anyone elses mousetrap. For mousetrap substitute DOS, Internet Browser, Media Player, and so on.
If they employed good software engineering principals, there would be no problem at all removing quite a few bits of the OS - they should be 'black box' components with clearly defined interfaces. But no, they have (deliberately in my opinion) made the whole lot a tangled web of interrelated bits with non-public interfaces with the specific purpose of making it difficult for others to plug into this crumbling edifice - and this is one of the ruling that has been made, to expose these APIs so that others can make tools to work in a Windows environment on the same playing field as MS themselves.
To give a simple analogy, suppose Ford (or GM or any large manufacturer) decided that it wanted an 'in' on the tyre market. All they would have to do is make the wheels of their cars non-standard and refuse to tell anyone what the dimentions were. To add to it, they could build part of the braking system into the wheel so that they could claim that "we can't remove the wheel and allow a third party to supply a replacement as other functions won't work". This is exactly what MS have done, and are doing - the difference is that with a wheel it's easy to just measure it and do your own drawings, with software interfaces it's technically still possible but VERY complex and in practice not viable.
3. anonymous
Microsoft isn't the fantastically profitable company people think it is.
(Ed note. Yes it is.)
There are three units to MS that are profitable. Windows (OS), Office, and the Mac Business Unit.
(Ed note. True, but you'll find the profits made still far outweigh the costs associated with the loss-leading units.)
MSN, XBox, Media all run at a loss paid for by Windows and Office.
So, it is not clear then that MS are abusing their technology to build a "need" for itself. If anyone openned their eyes they'd see options, but I suppose it's like the old 1980's adage: No one gets fired by buying MS