Closing gates?

William Gates III has faced many a challenges during his more than 20 years of nurturing Microsoft from scratch to making it the biggest corporation in the world. He has fought many a battle with his competitors, some of which, his ‘enemies’ would say, were not fairly fought.

Bill Gates now steps into the decisive stage of the biggest battle he has fought so far. The Department of Justice and 19 states in the US are up in arms against Microsoft alleging that the latter has been violating antitrust laws of the United States. Gates received the biggest jolt of his career early this week, when a federal judge hearing the case ruled that Microsoft indeed was guilty of violating US laws. It now remains to be seen what punishment does Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson hands over to Microsoft.

The trouble started for Gates and his company when Microsoft decided to offer free Internet Explorer browser along with its operating system Windows 95, in an attempt to put a stop to the fast growing popularity of Netscape’s Navigator browser. The Department of Justice in 1997 charged the software giant for alleged violation of the decree that Microsoft had signed, which essentially said that it would not bundle any of its software applications with the licensing of its operating system Windows.

Microsoft, denying that it had violated the decree, contended that by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, it was only adding a feature to its operating system. The case then took a larger proportion with Microsoft being charged with acting as a big bully in the market using its near total domination on the operating system segment to force the original equipment manufacturers to forcibly sell IE along with Windows.

After almost three years of arguments and counter-arguments, last week, Judge Jackson ruled that Microsoft was found guilty of using its dominance in the operating systems market to gain control over the browser market. It also used its clout in the software market to retain its domination over the operating systems market. The judge also said that Microsoft’s moves were clearly to push Netscape out of the browser market.

Now, prima facie, these are clear charges and Microsoft can expect punitive action from the judge for certain when he announces the punishment in May. However, market is still divided over whether Microsoft and its most famous personality, Bill Gates, will end up getting punished for the crimes. Some feel that there are still chances of Microsoft getting the ruling overturned, when it goes in for appeals in the district court of Washington DC. The company has already lost millions of dollars fighting the case, and now wants a speedy end to the whole drama. It is expected to request Judge Jackson to ask the Supreme Court to take the case directly.

One of the most noteworthy factors in the whole case is the way in which the 19 states and the Department of Justice stayed united in fighting the company and did not allow the several differences among themselves to the fore. In fact, Judge Jackson agreed to 23 of the 26 charges made by the states against Microsoft.

Gates, a product of the market, has now gone back to the market to explain the position of Microsoft in the whole antitrust case. He has come out with a 30-second TV advertisement, in which he has told the viewers that the goal at Microsoft "is to create the next generation of software, to keep innovating and improving what we can do for you."

Gates is not known to be one who gives up easily. And, in the antitrust case, too, we can expect him to fight for Microsoft and his ‘right to innovate’ till the very end.