IP: more on How Microsoft Conquered Washington

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ari Ollikainen <Ari () OLTECO com>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:47:06 -0700
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Re: IP: How Microsoft Conquered Washington

> [...snip...]
> How Microsoft Conquered Washington
> By spending lots of money--of course--but also by doing lots of
> creative lobbying you don't know about.
> Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
> Mon Apr 29 00:00:00 EDT 2002
[...snip...]

Have Microsoft's efforts paid off?

    You bet! And they're apparently about to pay off big time, again:

    http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3093624.htm
    posted on Thu, Apr. 18, 2002

Microsoft exec denies bid for Internet monopoly
By Heather Fleming Phillips Mercury News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A senior Microsoft official Thursday disputed rivals'
allegations that the company wants to extend its monopoly to the
Internet through its Passport online identification service.

David Cole, senior vice president of the MSN group, said in testimony
submitted in Microsoft's antitrust trial that Passport is a choice for
consumers, not a requirement.

Passport allows consumers to browse, shop and pay bills at various
Web sites with a single sign-on and password. Microsoft markets
Passport to other Web sites and uses it as a gateway to its own
products and services, such as the Hotmail Internet service and
instant messaging.

Nine states, including California, are continuing the legal case
against Microsoft, which was found by a federal court to have
violated antitrust law by abusing its monopoly power in the PC
operating system market. The states are seeking harsher penalties
than those contained in a settlement reached by the Department of
Justice last year.

Executives from America Online and Sun Microsystems have testified in
the remedy trial that Microsoft drove consumers to use its Passport
system with the goal of promoting its own online services. Microsoft
then made it difficult for rival authentication systems to take hold
by refusing to make Passport fully interoperable with other
identification services, they said.

Cole defended Passport as an optional feature for consumers and said
Microsoft is committed to open standards.

``Any Web site can take advantage of Passport's authentication
service by implementing Passport Manager, which runs today not only
on Windows, but also on several non-Microsoft server operating
systems and Web servers,'' Cole said in his written testimony.

Under cross-examination, a lawyer for the states tried to demonstrate
that Microsoft steers consumers toward using Passport by linking it
to some of Microsoft's most popular services, such as the free
Hotmail service and its Windows messenger. By signing up for either
of those services, a Passport account is automatically created.

Cole took the stand late Thursday, but lawyers for the states had
only a half-hour to cross-examine him before the close of business.
They will resume Monday morning.


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Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag
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        P.O. BOX 20088            Networking Architecture and Technology
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