InformationWeek

May 29, 2000

Microsoft's Grassroots Strategy

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ere this an assessment of a political campaign, the strategies and tactics under discussion would be, in golf parlance, "dead solid perfect." We're looking here at a textbook execution of what to do when the candidate is under fire, the outcome of a race is in doubt, and time is running short.

The "candidate" in this case is Microsoft, and the question is why it has opted to pursue a grassroots, populist campaign strategy in its antitrust battle when its principal constituency for the moment is a single individual.

First, a look at the breathtakingly effective execution of the tactics. A former colleague and friend--a hot-shot campaign advisor and a person who has had a seen and unseen hand in a number of races--has (appropriately, I think, given the level to which political discourse has devolved during the past dozen years) boiled his boilerplate down to a simple phrase: "Take It On The Come."

Come, in this case, stands for "communicate, overstate, moderate, and enervate," and Microsoft has unquestionably succeeded is accomplishing all four.

As for communicating, Microsoft has arguably captured more ink and airtime than any other technology company before it. Microsoft was and is everywhere, putting forth its sometimes-conflicting messages in great detail and capturing ongoing attention far in excess of the substance of the messages it is delivering. Even Microsoft couldn't afford to buy the coverage it has garnered. And that, according to my friend the politico, is a quite an achievement.

Overstatement long has been a Microsoft forte, and it is putting on a virtuoso performance here. Draconian, speculative, unprecedented, unwarranted, punitive, horrendous. A listing from Roget's Thesaurus? Nope. Merely a sampling of how Microsoft has described the recommendation that it be broken up. That move would "dismember" the company, would amount to a "confiscation" of its intellectual property assets, and would throw markets into "chaos." A reasoned assessment if ever I saw one.

The third commandment is to "moderate" the ongoing debate. Make sure they come to you for a follow-up response. Do everything you can to frame the issue. Make sure "they" (whoever "they" might be at any given juncture) know that you're in front of the issue, if not up front in your responses. Here, too, Microsoft has been picture perfect. As has been the case recently, it is CEO Steve Ballmer who was assigned the point position. The Washington Post's recent coverage of Ballmer's visit to the paper's editorial board is telling. At turns conciliatory and combative, Ballmer described Microsoft as "roughnecks" and "insensitive" while asserting that the company wishes to be seen as "a source of opportunity for others in the industry." Hmmm.

Even more interesting was Ballmer's description of his "incredible friend," Bill Gates, whom Ballmer described as "vociferous," "moralizing," "over-the-top passionate," "rude." Ballmer also acknowledged that because Gates "focuses on doing the right thing ... to a fault, you get a combustible situation." Perhaps wary of conjuring images of such other combustible individuals as John Rocker and Bobby Knight, Ballmer added that Microsoft's recent hiring of Linda Stone as a "cultural change agent" is not aimed at "a Bill Gates transformation, it's [part of] a company transformation."

As for enervating its opponents, Microsoft is among the best at being nettlesome and getting under the skin of those who don't agree with its agendas. Consider Gates' assertion that the recommendation to break up the company was arrived at by people who "don't understand the software industry." A welcome description, no doubt, to the distinguished academic economists who served as advisors to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.

Even Ballmer's own recent "we will not be broken up" assertion echoed his "to hell with Janet Reno" battle cry of the past and would seem to be at odds with his position that Microsoft "would be the first guys to re-engage" in a round of settlement talks. If there's no cause for breaking up the company--or for accepting anything other than the wrist-slap penalties it has recommended for itself--why negotiate at all? To parse that question using a different metaphor, one must wonder just how pregnant Microsoft thinks it is if, on the one hand, it is willing to negotiate and, on the other, blithely positions itself as being somehow above the mere tenets of the judicial system. Regardless, it is imperative to look like the reasonable party while attaching all sorts of all-but-impossible conditions to agreeing to engage in a debate.

Where public opinion is concerned, Microsoft has done an astounding job of obscuring the findings of Judge Jackson and reducing the issues to their lowest common denominator: a good-guy-vs.-bad-guy debate. That works well in electoral politics, but it hardly seems the way to go in software industry--and in the broader reaches of the new economy.

Only one thing is certain: The fireworks promise to continue well beyond the Fourth of July, and they should be at least as entertaining.

Lou Bertin is an industry consultant. He can be reached at Lou.Bertin@gte.net.


Rusty Weston: Matter Of Fact Rusty explores the facts and figures behind business technology.	Charles Pelton: Eye On IT Charles explores IT management issues and strategies that business and technology managers face.	Jason Levitt: Internet Zone Jason focuses on the strange, egregious, and the standard technologies of the intranet/Internet.	Stuart Johnston: Internet Zone As our eyes and ears in Redmond, Stuart gives his perspective on the latest events at Microsoft.