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Analysis: Yes, Microsoft does want to dominate wireless as well

Let's not fudge it, please. Microsoft may well win its case against "the nine states" - and get permission, in effect, to use unfair tactics to dominate the wireless/mobile arena the way it does the desktop. But this isn't good for us; and quite possibly, it may not even be good for Microsoft.

My instincts tell me not to get excited about the news that hand-held device makers can speak their minds about Microsoft. The question which the Judge is asking is not one which particularly affects the rest of us, I suspect.

What she's concerned with is the legality of the evidence. And rightly; any decision she makes which is legally suspect, will be overturned, however correct it may be morally. She has to get it right. But the reason she has to get it right is that the future of the IT industry depends on a just solution to the problem.

Microsoft, frankly, still doesn't understand that it has done anything wrong. Talk to senior executives, and you will find that they agree that they have to change their ways. "We used to think it was OK just to obey the letter of the law, and we've come to understand that we are now too big a corporation to get away with that; we have to follow the spirit of the law, too," is a typical comment.

But what I don't perceive, is an acknowledgement that there might be actual harm being done by the Microsoft approach to competition.

From Microsoft's point of view, it isn't just a question of being greedy. Microsoft perceives its very survival at stake.

Ten years ago, Microsoft was just a purveyor of low quality desktop software to a world which was just discovering the LAN. It really didn't matter whether the big, corporate IT managers liked it or not, in those days; PC purchases were made without asking their permission, and magazines like PC Mag grew enormous catering to these unofficial buyers of hardware.

Today, however, Microsoft has challenged and defeated Novell in networking, Lotus/IBM in mail, and is giving Oracle a hard time in database, and is a major player in directory services and giant server clusters.

It perceives a real threat to its success in an alliance between Sun and IBM, over Java - an alliance which most of us really believed would have split apart by now. Instead, both are renewing their commitment to make Java work, on every platform from the biggest distributed mainframe to the smallest hand-held device. And no question but that the threat from Microsoft and .Net is part of this bonding together.

If Microsoft wants to survive in the corporate arena, it has to make .Net work, and it has to make it accepted. And it's hard to see any way of getting this to happen unless .Net actually offers real advantages; and frankly, the biggest attraction is going to be that "it works better" which doesn't just mean "it runs faster" or "it's easier to program."

What Microsoft has to do is make it work seamlessly across all platforms, and do this better than any rival cross-platform offering - that is, better than Java.

What the Courts have to do, is make sure that it does this by making .Net better than Java. What it has to do - absolutely - is prevent Microsoft from tying bricks around the feet of its rivals, and mounting the goal-posts on castors, the way it so memorably did when supporting its own Office software in Windows to the detriment of rival word processors and spreadsheets.

Microsoft never got convicted of killing off rival word processors by writing special bits of Windows to support features in Word - but nobody today can doubt that that happened.

It must not happen again. The evils of competition and fragmentation are real; but the evils of monopoly are unavoidable, and monopoly must be prevented or we don't have a free economy. If Microsoft provides a facility to make an iPaq work well under .Net, then it really must provide a parallel facility in Windows to support Java or Palm, or at least, a channel of information which allows Java or Palm or Symbian to find the hooks they need to tie into Windows and .Net.

Frankly, I don't think the Judge can make this happen. I hope she can. Microsoft is, of course, a far more mature and responsible organisation than it was five years ago, never mind a decade ago; but I still don't have any hope that it will act in the industry's best interest without some pressure put on it. Even a small reprimand from the Judge might, I suppose, add to that pressure, and is welcome; but we need more.