Microsoft’s .Net is accused as the next monopoly ploy

WASHINGTON: Procomp, a group funded by Microsoft's competitors, charged

Microsoft on Thursday with planning to use its new Windows XP operating system

and .NET strategy to extend its monopoly. The group said Microsoft planned to

use its dominant Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser to force

consumers to adopt its new .NET Internet platform.

"Microsoft's current strategy to extend and preserve its monopoly

position is .NET, which can most basically be described as Microsoft Windows for

the Internet," the group said.

In essence, Procomp complained that .NET amounts to an attempt by Microsoft

to "turn the Internet into a big Microsoft subscription service - taking

services that are currently free and turning them into revenue streams for

Microsoft."

Microsoft has said it is working on converting its consumer software and some

other services like online calendars and instant messaging into a fee-based Web

service under its .NET strategy. Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan dismissed the

accusations, saying they amount to "basically them recycling every argument

they have."

Cullinan said the .NET initiative is an innovation that will "take the

Internet to the next level." Instead of complaining, he said competitors

should come up with competing products and services. "Their goal here is to

have government regulation slow Microsoft down."

It was the latest of several accusations that Microsoft rivals have leveled

in hopes of dissuading officials in the Bush administration from agreeing to a

"wrist-slap" settlement with the company. Antitrust attorneys in

Washington are expecting the US Court of Appeals to overturn a large part of the

sweeping, lower court ruling against Microsoft, including the order splitting

the company in two.

That would probably prompt the Justice Department to settle the case, with

Microsoft agreeing to a set of restrictions on its future business behavior. The

seven-judge appeals panel heard arguments on the case in February, and a ruling

on the case could come at any time.

In their latest blast at Microsoft, competitors complain that that the

company is trying to force people to use its technologies by tying them to the

new XP operating system. They said the company used the tactic before to promote

its Internet Explorer browser at the expense of Netscape Navigator.

"When consumers start Windows XP, therefore, (they) will have precisely

one browser, one e-mail product, one media player, one instant-messaging

program," the Procomp report says. In the new XP operating system, software

applications are "tied every which way like a big eight-headed Siamese

twin," said Procomp president Mike Pettit.

"It would be very difficult for anyone else to compete and have full

functionality if they only intend to compete in (just) one of these (software)

categories," Pettit said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.