Re: Microsoft Cleared In Conn. Of Antitrust Violations

[steve cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Mitch Stone wrote:

> --- From a message sent by Steve Cohen on 7/18/1999 10:18 AM ---
>
> >I've said all along that Bristol should have expected this treatement from
> >Microsoft when they cooked up their original deal, and were foolish not to.
> >However, I STILL object to the Microsoft argument those who sue them are
> >merely
> >envious of their wealth and trying to grab a piece for themselves.
> >Bristol may
> >have given them the opening with this poorly conceived legal case.
> >Microsoft's
> >defense is no less offensive because of it - and - mark my words - the same
> >argument will be made against Caldera in their suit.
>
> Perhaps, but I keep asking myself a selfish question: what does it matter
> to me anyway? Even if Bristol had won a large cash settlement from
> Microsoft, how does that affect the market for competing products? Not
> one bit. This is especially the case with the Caldera suit -- a battle
> over a long-obsolete product.

To any of us as individuals, of course, it makes no difference whether Caldera
wins some money from Microsoft.  I couldn't care less about that.

On the other hand, the Caldera case, unlike the Bristol case, is not about two
partners falling out, one who certainly should have known better - it is about
the brazen predatory tactics upon which the whole evil empire was built.  Not
for nothing does Wendy Rohm devote a whole chapter on these events in her
book.  As such it has important symbolic value.

More importantly, If Microsoft wins this case, it could well alter the momentum
of the whole DOJ case making Judge Jackson seen as some kind of wacko if, as
expected, he rules against Microsoft, making a decision by him much easier to
overturn.

The cigarette companies long fought tooth and nail to prevent even one damages
case from going against them.  It was certainly important to them that their
aura of invincibility not be cracked; it was equally important to those
battling them that the wall be breached as eventually it was.

A similar logic applies here.  If Microsoft is allowed to emerge unscathed from
this round of lawsuits, we will see them owning the world for at least the next
quarter century.  This case is indeed important, at least in a symbolic sense.

> Unless you believe that Microsoft, once
> bitten, is twice shy, then the outcomes of these antitrust suits are
> anticlimaxes to non-events.

Isn't Microsoft already forced by these lawsuits to tread lightly on things
like java?  Sure, they're nowhere near defanged, but it definitely makes a
difference.

Are you saying that there's nothing to be done about Microsoft?  I don't think
so.  But I don't get a clear sense of what you think the important events in
this fight are.