A federal judge's decision this week that Microsoft violated anti-trust laws is tinged with irony. The computer industry moves with lightning speed. Products, services, even hardware standards constantly are changing. Justice, meanwhile, grinds along at its usual, deliberative pace.
By the time Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his ruling Monday that Microsoft illegally protected its Windows monopoly, the company already had come out with Windows 2000, which isn't a part of the government's complaint. By the time he ruled that Microsoft tried to monopolize the browser market, experts already were declaring the personal computer to be a thing of the past. The industry now is focusing on Internet access through a variety of new platforms. And, despite the clear victory for the governments, including Utah, that brought the suit, Microsoft is planning to appeal, and that process could take a long time.
The message here is that it would be foolish to expect much to change as a result of the ruling. Given the fact that the computer industry works in nanoseconds and the justice system in months or years, it is difficult to draw any significant conclusions or lessons. That is both good and bad news for Utah's many computer-related companies.
It is bad news because Microsoft has without question used its position to stifle competition. Caldera Inc., in Utah County, offers a prime example. Earlier this year, a judge ruled Microsoft had interfered with Caldera's DR-DOS, an operating system that competed with Microsoft's MS-DOS. Again, the ruling came long after it could have had any real significance. DOS already is several generations behind current operating systems. But it offers further evidence of why the industry should be concerned. Only through fair competition can computer innovators adequately serve the public. Meanwhile, while the latest decision is under appeal, Microsoft will be free to continue business as usual.
On the other hand, Utah's businesses should take heart. The industry itself is constantly opening new avenues for competition. Microsoft is not Standard Oil, where the product in question had powerful, but limited, application. The computer industry is limited only by the imaginations of the people who are competing for market share.
The key is to make sure that imagination is given free rein, not squashed by a giant that wants to consume every threat in sight. That may take awhile.
In the end, of course, changes will come, depending on whatever penalties eventually are imposed on Microsoft. When that day comes, it is likely to have some significance. Microsoft is not about to sit still and let the age of high tech continue on without it. Utah's fledgling computer businesses, as well as its former giants that fell hard in combat with Microsoft (remember WordPerfect?), should hope that Monday's ruling will at least send a strong enough warning for Microsoft to change its ways.
Beyond that, they can do little more than try to be the first and the best at whatever new product computers can be made to provide.