Joining the Dark Side

That Microsoft, Inc., is an important force in high tech today is a given. About 90 percent of all personal computers run some version of Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Word and Office are the number one word processor and office software suite respectively on both Windows and Macintosh PC's. Novell NetWare, long the dominant product for PC-based networks, is slipping to second place behind Microsoft's NT Server, and the Redmond, Wash., software giant has made inroads into markets previously ruled by database giant Oracle and the web browser king Netscape.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has used its enormous financial clout and standard-setting power to dip its hands into many areas on-line: news (MSNBC), consumer Internet access (Web TV), and travel reservations. And partly for this reason, Microsoft has become extremely controversial of late. The Justice Department lawsuit filed last fall over the earlier consent degree is still ongoing, and may be expanded next month. Several states' attorneys general are investigating Microsoft's trade practices, as is the European Union. More recently, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) held committee hearings in early March questioning whether or not Microsoft was hurting competitiveness in the computer industry, and a few months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit was announced, newspapers reported a surge in anti-Microsoft feelings. One Microsoft employee complained they were being demonized.

So why aren't we talking about it more at Harvard? Given the importance of computers and networking to nearly all of us both in school and afterwards in the "real world," shouldn't we be more concerned? There seems to be a remarkable lack of official discussion, especially in The Crimson, about Microsoft's dominance in the computer world.

Maybe we Harvard scholars are so erudite that we understand there actually is no problem. As Bill Gates testified in the Senate, competition in the software business is alive and well and innovation seems to be booming more than ever. Maybe, as David M. Weld wrote last November ("Booing Bill Gates," Nov. 18, 1997), people just like to pick on Microsoft merely because it's so successful, not because it's anti-competitive or evil. He points out that "We may need villains to root against as much as we need heroes to cheer for."

But perhaps some of us at Harvard are already too far in bed with Microsoft to be truly objective. After all, who is our wealthiest and possibly most famous non-graduate? Bill Gates is, and who among us doesn't want to emulate his success just a little? (Whenever I told people in the "real world" that I was taking time off from Harvard to work for a software company, half the time they asked if I was going to drop out and become the next Bill Gates.) I hear the Microsoft CFO is a Harvard Business School alum who recently visited the B-School as a guest speaker.

Computer Science Professor H. T. Kung is now the William H. Gates Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, and the new computing lab is being funded by a huge grant from Microsoft bigwigs Steve A. Ballmer '77 and Bill Gates. In February, (News, Feb. 20), we learned that Microsoft had awarded two undergraduates a year's tuition and paid internships at Microsoft. Plus let's not forget all those Harvard graduates who went on to work for Microsoft as summer interns or full-time employees, or those current students who aspire to work in Redmond. Microsoft is one of the biggest high-tech recruiters at Harvard.

Of course we at Harvard still have our freedom of speech and we're not quite Microsoft U. yet. The percentage of Macintosh users here is higher than in the business world, and the computer labs have plenty of Macs plus some Unix workstations. Most campus machines seem to run Netscape Navigator instead of Internet Explorer, and most courses take pains to make sure any required software or web-distributed documents can be run or read on both Windows and Mac machines.

I do hear the occasional anti-Microsoft grumble from students. Crimson columnist Kevin S. Davis '98 (Tech Talk, Jan. 5) called for the DOJ to break up Microsoft to end its monopoly. Likewise, on Feb. 17, Davis explained how the once high-flying Netscape was humbled by Microsoft's extremely aggressive competition in the browser market. And somebody invited unabashed Microsoft critic Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle Corporation) to campus last fall, where he spoke to a packed Science Center auditorium.

We also should remember that Professor of Law Lawrence Lessig was appointed by Federal District Court Judge Thomas P. Jackson to serve as a special master on technical aspects of the current lawsuit. From Microsoft's vociferous legal protests, we know they don't count him as an avid supporter. Though a higher court suspended Lessig's involvement until another hearing later this month. Still, it seems that for such an important issue that will be affecting all of our lives, the volume of debate over Microsoft on campus keeps getting softer while the steady "ka-ching" of Microsoft money flowing through the Harvard campus keeps getting louder. Perhaps the old business saying should be changed to say, "When money talks, dissent walks."

John F. "Case" Kim '92-'98, a Crimson editor, is an economics concentrator in Cabot House.

Who among us doesn't want to emulate Bill Gates, even if just a little?