Unmasking Microsoft's innovation scam

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Now that Microsoft Corp. and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached an out-of-court settlement that won't restrict the vendor from bundling applications with its operating systems, Microsoft thinks the world should cheer now that it can "freely innovate." What could be more un-American than stopping a company from its inalienable right to innovate?

The Justice Department says it will impose restraints on Microsoft that "will open the operating system to competition." But the issue isn't operating system competition. It is the illegal bundling of new functions that shouldn't be part of anyone's operating system.

Integration Isn't Innovation

In 1998, well before it made that same argument in court, Microsoft began its public relations effort to try to convince the world that its "integration" of new Windows functions was critical to its ability to innovate. To the public, and probably to a vast number of computer professionals, it didn't seem such an outlandish claim. But it really was.

When this claim is examined more closely in terms of what it takes to build, maintain and improve software systems, one can only conclude that Microsoft is trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes.

The desire to innovate in software systems hasn't changed since I started programming in 1954. The concept of developing new versions of software systems, including operating systems like DOS, VMS and Windows, with new features and functions has been with us for at least 40 years. When IBM unbundled its software in 1970 and created a competitive environment, innovation became more important, because adding features to a software system improved its marketability. Tie-ins have been illegal since the end of the 19th century, when the Sherman Act antitrust laws were written. The question of the legality of software tie-ins was raised back in the 1960s in several suits against IBM, which included lawsuits filed by the Justice Department and Applied Data Research.

Microsoft apparently wants to change the antitrust tie-in laws by convincing the world that the ability of its staffers to innovate would be limited if they couldn't integrate freely and without restraint.

What nonsense.

"Integration," as the word is used by Microsoft, means "tie-in" to the rest of the world.

PR Pitch Falls Short

Microsoft's "innovation through integration" public relations effort began with Bill Gates' unveiling of Windows 98 in April 1998, when he discussed a Microsoft white paper entitled "Integration, Innovation