The Minority Report

I’m going to bold the important part blow me. As I said the other day, it’s pretty obvious that Bill Gates is gone from Microsoft. It is also becoming increasingly obvious that either Steve Ballmer has been biting his tongue for the past 30 years or he’s an idiot.

Microsoft’s business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice and innovation in how people access the Internet.

Let’s think back for a moment to the activities in question. In the mid-1990s Microsoft began developing Internet Explorer in response to the success of the product known as Netscape Navigator. In this period Microsoft developed a fine product (particularly the version known as IE 4). Kudos to Microsoft for this. Microsoft also promoted IE through activities that the US Department of Justice and the U.S. Courts determined to be illegal. As result, Internet Explorer ended up with well over 90% market share. Once this happened, Microsoft stopped browser development; even disbanding its browser team. The product stagnated and then became a prime vector for bad actors to inject spyware onto consumers’ computers. There was no meaningful response or innovation from Microsoft. Despite this, there was no effective competition from the marketplace, no commercial entities gaining success with other products. This is not surprising — I don’t think there has been a single example of anyone ever regaining market share from a Microsoft monopoly until Mozilla Firefox.

Mitchell’s Blog » Blog Archive » The European Commission and Microsoft

BARCELONA, Spain–iPhone maker Apple isn’t at GSMA Mobile World Congress 2009 along with the rest of the mobile phone industry, but the company’s growing success is definitely top of mind for key executives in the mobile market.

The iPhone and Apple’s successful App Store got more than a passing mention on Tuesday during a panel moderated by The Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg.

The panel which included three of the most powerful CEOs in the mobile industry–Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility, the second largest mobile operator in the U.S.; Olli-Pekka Kallasvu, CEO of Nokia, the world’s largest handset maker, and Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, the worldwide software leader–centered on the need for more openness to spur successful innovation in the mobile market.

Apple is top of mind for execs at MWC | 3GSM blog – CNET Reviews

Ballmer argued that device openness was important to give customers more choices. And he pointed to the number of choices that Windows Mobile customers have when choosing a device.

“I agree that no single company can create all the hardware and software,” he said. “Openness is central because it’s the foundation of choice.“

Apple is top of mind for execs at MWC | 3GSM blog – CNET Reviews

Now I know what you are going to say, that the CEO of Microsoft has to say things like that to stifle his competitors. That by hook or by crook, it’s just words and that pushing others to be more open doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to be. I just think that quotes like that are the height of hubris and deep, deep irony.

Microsoft has made it their mission to be as closed as humanly possibly until forced to be open by either Governments or large enough grassroot movements, like Firefox or Google, again force them to be open to compete (read OpenDocument).

Well whatever, Microsoft is on a decline. Their share price is down, they are laying off large numbers of people for the first time ever and they continue to be beset on all sides by Open Source and Free competitors that you just can’t use a natural Windows monopoly to crush.

Much like Microsoft did to IBM in the ’80s, Microsoft is getting it now.