InformationWeek

Dear David:
Thanks for your comments. The problems that you mention are all valid, but capable of being managed, I think, without a lot of undue effort.

The last point that you mention, cross-subsidization, is the most difficult issue to handle. Making sure that there is no cross-subsidization of product development is, indeed, a large potential stumbling block in what I propose. In fact, back in the days of the AT&T breakup, one of the big concerns was that no matter what was done, short of a separation into the Baby Bells, AT&T would play games with using revenue from one service to help another.

I think, however, that there is a relatively straightforward way to ensure that Microsoft doesn't practice the wonderful art of using money from one pocket to pay for developing products that should be funded from another. The answer lies in providing incentives to the participants at the working manager level to play it straight. Make sure that each business group cross-charges the other units for the work done--and give each of these units bonuses based on their profit contribution, which of course include the amount made on cross-charging. Watch how fast and effectively it works. There will be little tolerance for game-playing when that new BMW 740i depends on whether or not the other guy is paying his or her fair share.

As to your first point, I can understand your concern about the amount of government supervision it would take to ensure that Microsoft shares its applications program interfaces. However, I think that there is a simple way--one that doesn't require a lot of governmental intervention--to make sure that Microsoft doesn't "forget" about publishing all of its APIs. The solution is to have an ongoing little contest. Not original with me, but it should take care of enhancing the corporate memory of the folks in Redmond. Here's the drill: Each person who finds an undocumented API winds up with $20 million, courtesy of Mr. Gates' favorite company. I'll bet that my version of a Easter Egg hunt, which I call, less than originally, "Who Wants to Be a Multi-Millionaire" would be really popular. Do you think we could get MSNBC to broaden its programming to cover it?

Dear Paul:
Given that the Microsoft case may be with us for a long time, good ideas should be encouraged and several of yours would help provide more competition in the industry. For example, there's no doubt in my mind that software pricing should be unbundled from hardware sales. It shouldn't be legal for Microsoft to either use threats or provide incentives to computer manufacturers to discourage the sale of competing software. I also very much like the idea of making sure that the box isn't bigger than necessary to hold the disks and manuals. I missed the problem of driving competition off of the shelves by space management and I should have seen it.

So far as keeping Microsoft from announcing vaporware: Just because the Redmond dudes have been working on something for a long time doesn't mean that it's still nothing more than a gleam in someone's eyes in their marketing department. Recognizing that a Microsoft announcement (with the company's typically wildly optimistic delivery date) can freeze the purchases of competing products, a better solution might be to issue big fines for Microsoft for each day it's late with the product and the features it's touting. To make sure that this process works, however, it will be up to consumers to abstain from first-purchaser syndrome should Microsoft decide to hurry and release the software with more bugs than usual (a process hard to imagine) to avoid the fines.

The only idea of yours with which I really disagree, is the one about sending "Microsoft felons" to jail. As you know, they have stated repeatedly that their actions are in the best interests of the public. Who are we to disagree? Therefore, I would prefer putting them in a room, feeding them only bread and water (no free Cokes, etc), bombarding them with multiple decibels of the word "Innovation" repeated endlessly, and requiring them to re-code Windows until it is bug-free.

Dear David:
If we didn't have to communicate increasingly with people outside our own company, I'd go along with your idea. Even a little problem in being able to share information with business partners, suppliers, and clients can cost an organization a lot of money - even enough to rival what we pay in license fees for desktop software. Let's assume as you state that StarOffice does have 90% of the functionality of Office and is 100% compatible. The problem that scares CIOs is trying to figure out which 90% of functions are the ones that will be used and what would Microsoft do in their next version to make StarOffice noncompatible. Would our friends in Redmond do that to kill off a competitor? Can you buy a latte in Seattle? Did Bill get rich by being nice to his competition? If you doubt the fervor of Microsoft to protect what they see as their markets, take a look at how Internet Explorer 5.5 continues to diverge from Netscape, making it harder for compatibility to exist on the Internet. Even though Microsoft has won the browser war, it seems to work on the assumption that it's not enough to beat a challenger, you need to bury him. Is there any reason to expect that StarOffice would be treated any differently if it were to gain a substantial following?

Herbert W. Lovelace shares his experiences (changing most names, including his own, to protect the guilty) as CIO of a multibillion-dollar international company. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com.