Fine Microsoft and use funds to catalize new competition Kenneth Brown Conway Springs Star June 22, 2000 Rather than focusing on breaking apart products, and companies that work, the government should fine Microsoft Corporation fog its alleged anti-trust violations and use the funds to sponsor grants for competing operating system development. The approaches was suggested by Gregory Fossedal, chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a public-interest research foundation. "The fund," he said, "could be operated by the court itself or by a commission composed of leading members of Congress, industry, and the executive." "What everyone wants in this case is competition. Yet our anti-trust remedies focus on the negative - on how to break up a sensitive organism, a successful modern corporation, into different bits. Leading economists, technology experts, and even developers have weighed in, arguing against the Justice Department's proposal because 'it either is too extreme or does not go far enough.' The break-up plan is inherentely flawed because it supposedly guarantees competition - but competition will only come if other innovators step up to the plate with products." "What we are suggesting is direct and positive, and avoids the nightmare complexity of sifting; through various breakup proposaIs and .potentially throwing the technology economy into a tailspin. It would also enable policy on operating, system, technology to unfold over time, in a dynamic way - rather than, proposing one static solution now, that may be completely obsolete in the fast-changing technological environment." Fossedal noted. recent remarks in a Tocqueville interview with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D) who said, "we don't need to break-up Microsoft, we need to create more Bill Gates." Fossedal said, "I agree with Representative Johnson. Why not promote competition by simply promoting competition?"

Fine Microsoft and use funds to catalize new competition

Kenneth Brown
Conway Springs Star
June 22, 2000

Rather than focusing on breaking apart products, and companies that work, the government should fine Microsoft Corporation fog its alleged anti-trust violations and use the funds to sponsor grants for competing operating system development.

The approaches was suggested by Gregory Fossedal, chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a public-interest research foundation. "The fund," he said, "could be operated by the court itself or by a commission composed of leading members of Congress, industry, and the executive."

"What everyone wants in this case is competition. Yet our anti-trust remedies focus on the negative - on how to break up a sensitive organism, a successful modern corporation, into different bits. Leading economists, technology experts, and even developers have weighed in, arguing against the Justice Department's proposal because 'it either is too extreme or does not go far enough.' The break-up plan is inherentely flawed because it supposedly guarantees competition - but competition will only come if other innovators step up to the plate with products."

"What we are suggesting is direct and positive, and avoids the nightmare complexity of sifting; through various breakup proposaIs and .potentially throwing the technology economy into a tailspin. It would also enable policy on operating, system, technology to unfold over time, in a dynamic way - rather than, proposing one static solution now, that may be completely obsolete in the fast-changing technological environment."

Fossedal noted. recent remarks in a Tocqueville interview with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D) who said, "we don't need to break-up Microsoft, we need to create more Bill Gates." Fossedal said, "I agree with Representative Johnson. Why not promote competition by simply promoting competition?"