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Microsoft Keeps On Innovating with Windows Messenger, Office XP...
Beginning May 31 with the launch of Office XP and continuing this week with the announcement of Windows Messenger, Microsoft has embarked upon one of the most exciting and important periods in our history of innovating on behalf of consumers.
Last week, Microsoft launched Office XP, software that delivers the next generation of productivity advancements and enables people to easily unlock hidden knowledge. Innovations such as smart tags, SharePoint Team Services and XML integration will empower people to capture, locate and harness this hidden knowledge and greatly boost productivity. These features are an important step toward delivering on the Microsoft .NET vision of XML Web services. (To learn more about Office XP view: http://microsoft.com/office/.)
Monday, June 4, brought the promise of even more great innovations for consumers, with the announcement of Windows Messenger, a ground-breaking new real-time communications experience that will be available in Windows XP on October 25, 2001. Windows Messenger takes users to the next level of computing via PC, by unifying many of the communications technologies they want and use most, including audio and video conferences, instant messages, and collaboration tools such as white-boarding, application sharing and file-transfer. Using the latest in "presence" technologies, Windows Messenger users can obtain easy, real-time, online help, as well as see instantaneously which of their contacts are available to meet or who does not want to meet. With high-quality voice conversations and other improvements in sound and video, consumers can see, talk, work and play with friends, family and colleagues effortlessly, enhancing the user experience exponentially. (You can visit Microsoft's Windows XP site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/.)
Some companies might like to keep the world of computers and communications complex and expensive, but Microsoft's business model is to simplify and enhance these technologies for users at affordable prices. Competitors may not like that model, but consumers who reap the rewards do. As long as that's the case, Microsoft will keep right on innovating for their benefit.
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...as ProComp Resurfaces with Familiar Lobbying, PR Tactics
While Microsoft continues innovating to bring the next generation of computing to consumers, some of its competitors have kept busy too. ProComp, the group that includes some of Microsoft's largest competitors, such as Sun, Oracle and AOL, and that successfully lobbied the DoJ to instigate the antitrust case against their rival, has issued two new tracts that recycle old allegations against Microsoft. The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) and the Computing and Technical Industry Association (CompTIA) responded last week by releasing a white paper debunking the ProComp charges (http://www.actonline.org/getIT/).
In a Wired News story (http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,44170,00.html) ACT president Jonathan Zuck characterized the ProComp effort as itself anticompetitive: "By creating a PR war, by trying to do lobbying in Congress," said Zuck, "by trying to get products prevented from being shipped, these are all efforts to prevent Microsoft from entering the marketplace."
C. Boyden Gray, a contributor to the ACT report and a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, agreed with that assessment and offered an observation about the beneficiaries of the action: "ProComp's white papers are yet another effort by Microsoft rivals to misuse the antitrust laws to stifle the very competition and innovation these laws are designed to promote," Gray noted. "Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries of a breakup would be Microsoft rivals Oracle and Sun, but those who would be harmed most by a breakup are the ones that antitrust law is designed to protect -- consumers," he said. (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010531/tc
/microsoft_s_friends_foes_escalate_war_of_words_1.html)
For more coverage of the dueling groups, visit:
Let your elected officials know how you feel about resurrecting version 2.0 of the Microsoft case,. See how you can help by going to http://www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate/howhelp.asp
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DOJ Case Update
On February 26 and 27th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral arugments in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust suit. The Appeals court has not yet ruled on the case but issues its decision each Tuesday and Friday. The FIN will keep you posted when a decision is announced.
msfin@microsoft.com
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Other Key Policy Issues
Privacy
The Association for Competitive Technology released a new study on the cost of online privacy legislation. This study estimates the direct costs that would be caused by current legislative proposals addressing online privacy could cost businesses $30 billion. To read more visit: http://www.actonline.org/issues/privacystudy.asp
Shared Source
Microsoft recently announced its Shared Source Philosophy, taking steps to give customers, partners and developers greater access to its source code -- the core building blocks of Windows and other software products -- while safeguarding the intellectual property that will allow it to remain innovative and successful.
To learn more about Shared Source visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/features/2001/may01/05-03csm.asp
To read commentary about Shared Source visit the Competitive Enterprise Institute's web site at: http://www.cei.org/CSPINReader.asp?ID=1466
msfin@microsoft.com
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Stay Involved
Let your public officials know your views TODAY by linking to the Freedom to Innovate Network website at www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate.
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