---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 10:41:59 -0800
From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Growing concern with high tech model
The Daily Telegraph 14 December 1997
AMERICA GROWS WARY OF GATES'S
BID TO CONTROL THE WEB
By Ivo Dawnay in Washington
The interim ruling by a US federal judge that Microsoft could not
bundle its browser with Windows 95 was not just an anti-trust or market
monopoly case aimed at halting the Seattle-based giant imposing its
Explorer software on an unknowing world.
Strip away the jargon, and it is really about whether Microsoft -
indeed, one could claim, Mr Gates personally - should be allowed to have
almost total control of the world's access to the World Wide Web.
So powerful is Microsoft as the maker of the operating systems that
power 90 per cent of the world's PCs and laptops that it is now seeking to
use its dominance to make retailers and computer makers install its own
browsers.
The company has been squeezing its popular rival, Netscape, by
insisting that all sellers of its Windows programs include the kit for free.
Next year Microsoft's new Windows '98 program, to be installed in
virtually all the world's new machines, was to have the browser built-in,
eliminating the likelihood that discriminating shoppers might choose an
alternative.
By controlling the circuits that make the machines think,
Microsoft's rivals argued, the company could use its software code to lock
out its competitors.
The struggle is now postponed to a May date in the courts. Yet it
has triggered a reappraisal of Bill Gates. Until recently he was depicted as
the quintessential hero of American capitalism - the Rockefeller, Carnegie
or Ford of his day. Today that view is under regular attack. Critics do not
gainsay that the 42-year-old Harvard drop-out and world's richest man is a
genius. The industry he has helped generate now accounts for hundreds of
thousands of jobs and five per cent of US gross domestic product - the
difference between healthy growth and recession.
But many are beginning to think his genius is, if not evil, then at
least directed solely to his own corporate interests. America is beginning to
recognise a "downside" to the computer revolution. The Washington Post
told how Al Gore, the Vice-President, was unable to attend a meeting
without his IBM Think Pad open by his side, his eyes constantly dancing
between his colleagues and his e-mail. Less impressed Washingtonians
questioned whether Mr Gore might not need a holiday.
Last week a Reuters survey of 1,000 businessmen around the globe
found 61 per cent were now complaining of information overload. Four out
of five added that it was only going to get worse.
But the biggest source of disquiet is America's educational
establishment. Huge sums are being directed from arts budgets into buying
trendy gizmos for the classroom. In Texas, the school authorities are
talking about eliminating the textbook altogether. Yet there is so far next to
no evidence that this is improving results. "We have found that the average
concentration time for a child on a machine is about 12 minutes," said Dr
Samuel Sava, director of a 30,000-strong elementary schools' principals'
association.
At first sight, none of this seems to be Bill Gates's fault. But that is
not entirely true. The obsession with computers among politicians has had
its apogee in the Clinton administration with an initiative to wire up schools
for the President's so-called "Bridge to the 21st Century" strategy.
Al Gore has led the charge, forming a Silicon Valley-powered
policy group, known as Gore-Tech, to plan the future. "Infotech" political
funds are a major income source for the cash-strapped Democrats. The
Gates influence is everywhere. So it is impressive that the Justice
Department has dared to take on the monopoly might of Microsoft.
Yet there are some who believe that whatever the court's eventual
findings, Bill Gates's commercial muscles will ensure he wins anyway.
Since just last year, Netscape's market share has already dwindled from 73
per cent to 57 per cent under Microsoft's assault. Most smart
manufacturers will include the company's product whatever the outcome,
one expert analyst said, "just to keep Microsoft sweet".
And very soon thereafter, on screens in classrooms from Kansas to
Coventry to Canberra, a bit of Bill Gates's supercharged mind will be
blinking quietly away.
