Wednesday, November 4, 1998, page 20
In France, a Tilt at Microsoft
Academic Accuses U.S. Firm of Stifling Competition
By Barry James International Herald Tribune
BRUSSELS - While Microsoft has been holding its front line against the U.S. Department of Justice, it has also been taking flanking fire from a prominent French academic, who accuses it of abusing a monopoly position to impose mediocre products in Europe and stifle competition.Robert Di Cosmo, a researcher and teacher at the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure that trains France's university lecturers, warned that Microsoft's practices threaten to plunge the world into ''an obscure technological Middle Ages, dominated by a few feudal lords who seize control of writing and any other means of communication to collect a tax every time we breathe.''
The attack prompted a long counter-blast last month from the director of Microsoft France, Marc Chardon, who accused Mr. Di Cosmo of doing little more than ''relaying unfounded rumors circulating on the Internet.''
Mr. Di Cosmo, co-author of a recent book called ''Le Hold-up Planetaire,'' and an Internet-published fulmination entitled ''Piege dans le Cyberspace'' - ''Cybersnare'' in English translation - criticized both Microsoft's technology and its commercial strategy. He said the pre-installation of Microsoft's Windows operating system on new computers amounted to a tax on computing. He also said it was a breach of French consumer law, which states that it is illegal to tie the sale of one product to the purchase of another, and of articles 85 and 86 of the European Union's founding Treaty of Rome.
''This tax is in no way virtual,'' he said. ''Enormous amounts of money leave the European Union every year in exchange for low quality products that make us more and more dependent on poor technology from overseas. Furthermore, this technology is distributed in Europe at exorbitant prices, much higher than those charged in America or Canada.''
He backed up his allegation of poor quality with an examination of the way that Windows handles files by fragmenting them across the hard disk instead of storing them in logical order as on competing systems such as Unix. This, he said, made the Windows system slow and unreliable.
Why, he asked, is ''a computer much more powerful than the one that helped send men safely to the moon and back not capable of properly handling a document of a few hundred pages when it is running Microsoft Office?''
Mr. Di Cosmo said the European Union could create an alternative system by supporting the development of so-called open platforms such as NextStep or GNU/Linux.
-
A SPOKESMAN for the European Commission, the EU's executive body, said that the Union could and did support research projects involving more than one country, but it had received no applications for funding a new operating system. The spokesman said that neither the commission nor member governments could support a marketing exercise for an already existing product such as Linux without the risk of being hauled before the World Trade Organization.
The commission itself uses Microsoft operating systems and programs, which it said were chosen after an open public tender.
As to the question of Microsoft's being in breach of the Treaty of Rome, officials said the commission's anti-competition department has kept a watching brief on the question but had in effect left the investigation of the company's business practices to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In an open letter to customers and partners, Mr. Chardon of Microsoft denied that the company was operating a monopoly through the pre-installation of its software on the vast bulk of new PCs. He said manufacturers installed Windows in most cases so that they could offer an integrated product ready to use. He added that customers could buy competing systems such as Linux, Sun Solaris, Unix, IBM OS/2 Warp and Rhapsody, a version of the Macintosh operating system adapted to PCs.
To which Mr. Di Cosmo replied that any computer user installing a competing system would have a hard time obtaining a refund for the Microsoft system he did not need.
Mr. Di Cosmo attacked Microsoft's policy of giving away its software free to European schools, which he said was aimed at stifling competition and creating a generation of future buyers for its products. He cited a Microsoft agreement to supply software to the Swiss education system and train educators. ''For less than the cost of an advertising campaign, our monopolist has gained total control of computer education in Swiss schools, and thus, of Swiss companies, for by the time the students reach the job market, they will know nothing but Microsoft Office.''
''Looking into the future,'' he said, ''this is not a good deal for Switzerland, but at least they have not paid for Microsoft software.''
Mr. Chardon replied that Microsoft was not the only company to aid education, and said it was a good thing because it helped a country like France make up for a shortage of computer skills.
The commission spokesman commented that schools had to use the software that was already available rather than waiting for something better to come along later. He said that experience with other products, such as VCRs, had demonstrated that the first product on the market was not necessarily the best but it can gain a dominant position by establishing a standard for the entire market, as Microsoft has succeeded in doing with its Windows operating system.
Mr. Di Cosmo alleged that Microsoft was engaged on a quest to dominate the information superhighway by seeking ''the total control of any form of transmission and processing of information, be it in education, banking, the new and old media, or right down to the privacy of our own personal correspondence. A player capable of securing a monopoly in handling this information will be in a position to tax any computer operation.''
-
HE said the company built in incompatibilities with other software, and even older versions of its own programs, to oblige computer users to keep paying out for new products. ''If by chance one has bought an add-on product for version 5.0 (of Word), say a Spanish dictionary, it will have to be bought again for the new version,'' he said. ''The old one will now be 'incompatible,' even though Spanish has not changed a great deal in the meantime. This is, in fact, a kidnapping of your information.''
Mr. Chardon said the allegation that Microsoft sought to control all information was in the realm of science fiction. ''The Internet is the most open and democratic system that exists,'' he said. ''Taking control of it is totally impossible, and even less for a single company.''
