Right and wrong in IT

Here I was fretting about what I was going to ruminate about in today`s column. I was thinking that the Net superpowers, either locally or abroad, couldn`t possibly deliver really interesting announcements two weeks in a row. But what do I know, things change, literally overnight. AOL just bought Netscape in a $4.2 billion stock-swap. And it`s reasonable to assume that once again, the whole industry changes virtually overnight.

The Netscape deal, in my opinion, merely serves to cement the increasing rooting together of 'the others' versus Microsoft`s perceived 'dominance' in the market.

The way the North American online media depicts it, there are now two superpowers in Internetworking: Microsoft and AOL. Curiously, the two actually have little in common, and it`s not as if AOL wasn`t a very significant player already... after all, more than 10 million online users are one heck of a user-base to own. The Netscape deal, in my opinion, merely serves to cement the increasing rooting together of "the others" versus Microsoft`s perceived "dominance" in the market. It might in fact mean that the "Microsoft wars" in the courts will lose some of their bite.

Netscape`s and Sun`s war cry was mainly due to the fact that their core businesses were threatened by Microsoft giving away its browser for free and allegedly engaging in unfair business practices relating to its distribution. Netscape, which will likely cease to exist as a separate, software-manufacturing entity eventually, won`t be interested any longer in whether its browser product loses more market share or not. At least I don`t foresee that the "browser wars" are something that AOL will pursue with the same vengeance.

The concomitant three-year trade agreement between Sun Microsystems and AOL to further develop the Netscape technologies, especially the server products, might be significant. This part of the announcement, at least, seems to point to an increasing polarisation in the market, albeit only in a niche.

Personally, I often fail to see the immediate benefits that are derived from large-scale mergers. Even under close scrutiny, I find it hard to figure out where the respective acquisition parties see the additional value derived from throwing together organisations that are as disparate as a software manufacturer and an access provider, in this case. AOL, according to the press stories, feels that it`s adding value to itself in two ways: by adding cutting-edge technology and by acquiring Netscape`s nascent online publishing ventures. But as with so many portals, home.netscape.com isn`t a voluntary community of interest but a default browser setting. How exactly AOL intends to leverage off this competitive advantage remains to be seen.

Also in the news during the last few days was the court injunction that Sun managed to obtain against Microsoft and its apparent mis-use of the Java licence in its Internet Explorer browser. The part that I liked most was where Sun keeps insisting that Java is an "open standard" and then goes and sues Microsoft for making a change or two to it. Open standards, last time I looked, meant that you`re allowed to extend the standard, sort of like the BSD-derived free Unixes. Nobody is going to sue you if you hack around in Linux.

Yet that`s what Sun did when Microsoft made a few changes to its open standard. That throws open a whole bunch of questions related to whether Java is actually an open standard, or whether it`s about as "open" as, say Visual Basic. I can create anything I want in VB yet it`s unlikely that I`m allowed to change the language specification itself. So I`m not sure that this wasn`t merely another milestone in the current anti-Microsoft crusade that the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Netscape/Sun are engaging in.

And on that note, whenever one brings it up in conversation these days, the emotions and accusations really start flying. I think it`s interesting that the most common justification for people in support of the DoJ is that "Microsoft makes crap software". Try it. Strike up a conversation with some informed geeks and tell them that you think Microsoft is being treated unfairly in all this. Tell them that you think Microsoft arrived at its market dominance fairly, through growth and business practices no worse than those endorsed by any sensible businessperson, and see what happens.

I`m prepared to put money on someone saying, within about three minutes, that Microsoft makes crap software. Then they try to pass this off as a legitimate argument for taking Microsoft to court. The argument, it seems, is that it`s okay to take a company to court in an anti-trust suit if it makes server software that`s inferior to another product.

Nobody seems to see that this is a logical fallacy, a category error. The one fact doesn`t relate to the other at all. As a recently seen e-mail tagline would have it: "One fact can screw up a whole argument." Or something to that effect. Personally, I think that while there may be questionable business practices in Microsoft that might warrant some investigation, I also believe that the Redmond crowd is being dealt an increasingly rough deck to play with.

I also think, though, that there`s a good chance that the AOL/Netscape acquisition won`t create a much-anticipated antithesis to Microsoft`s dominance. I think that it`ll in fact turn out over time that Microsoft will retain its position at the top of the market due to its singular focus and determination. The "other camp" (AOL/Netscape and Sun) will soon discover that without better products, content and access are, after all, only more services among many similar ones. If you own the desktop, you own the user (much like you own the user`s Web eyes if you provide his Internet access and can preset his browser). There`s no doubt in my mind.