Microsoft suggests its own remedies

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled last month that Microsoft used its monopoly position to illegally crush competitors, harm consumers and stifle innovation.

The government proposal is that Microsoft should be split into two companies, such that one company sells the Windows operating system and the other deals with all remaining aspects of Microsoft’s existing business. However, Microsoft warned of the impact of such radical action on the company, the industry and the US economy.

Microsoft suggests alternative remedies. These include:

• giving computer makers control over whether the Microsoft Internet Explorer icon appears on the desktops of their computers;
• preventing Microsoft from entering into deals to promote any product or service through Windows in exchange for the other party agreeing to limit distribution of non-Microsoft platform software; and
• prohibiting Microsoft from withholding the release of any software product designed to run on a non-Microsoft platform in order to limit competition to Microsoft.

Even if Jackson accepts the Microsoft proposals, the company still plans to appeal the guilty verdict. The Department of Justice has already dismissed the Microsoft proposals as “ineffective and full of loopholes”. Mike Pettit, director of the group ProComp described the Microsoft proposal as “the equivalent of saying ‘no television for a week’ to someone who just robbed a bank.”