Yes, it really looks like it’s finally over.
Sixteen years after the US justice department first started digging into Microsoft’s Windows monopoly, and six years after the European Commission ratcheted up pressure on the company, the end to Microsoft’s anti-trust battles is in sight.
A lot of lawyers will retire fat and happy on the proceeds of this saga. But what has it all meant for users of technology? On the face of it: not a lot.
The US case ended in a settlement that required Microsoft to make its application programming interfaces generally available, and to license out its communications protocols to make interoperability with Windows easier (that last bit took a few years to get right and raised suspicions that, at least at first, Microsoft wasn’t taking its responsibilities very seriously).
In practice, though, it has always been in Microsoft’s interest to draw the maximum number of developers to Windows, so the stipulations about open APIs never looked very onerous. And rivals have grumbled for years about the protocol licensing terms, which is why few have signed up.
The concessions that Europe has won look a little more significant. PC users will be presented with a “ballot screen” asking them if they want to pick a browser other than Internet Explorer.
This should at least prove more effective than the European Commission’s earlier, botched attempt to bring competition to the digital media market by requiring Microsoft to sell a version of Windows stripped of its own media player (not surprisingly, noone seemed too interested in buying a less-than-complete version of the software, particularly since it was no cheaper than the full version).
But how many non-technical users will see the advantage of switching browsers – particularly since they will have to use IE in the first place to get to the online ballot screen?
Prodded by Brussels, Microsoft has also released a mass of information to make it easier for other companies’ technology to interoperate with Windows. To a large extent, though, this merely reflects the market reality that the company now faces. Customers have been demanding greater interoperability for some time, and Microsoft has long been moving in that direction (though critics claim it has deliberately dragged its feet in order to milk its Windows monopoly for as long as possible).
None of this sounds like it was worth all the time and effort it has taken. But reciting chapter and verse of the various regulatory settlements misses the bigger picture.
The most significant impact of the anti-trust wars probably stems from the success Microsoft’s rivals have had in tying the company up in regulatory knots for so long. We will never know what would have happened had it not been thrown onto the defensive, forcing it to tie up senior management attention in defending its business practices – and to shy away from the more aggressive tactics that might have been brought to bear against upstarts like Google.
That is something Google, now the subject of increasing regulatory interest, is starting to find out for itself.
In related news:
Google and US book publishers and authors have been given until November 9th to come up with a new version of their legal settlement to resolve the objections raised by the Department of Justice, among others.
The FT’s John Gapper on Eric Schmidt’s latest – and somewhat bizarre – attempt to distinguish Google from Microsoft: Google doesn’t have an “evil room”.
