To the editor:

 

Could the chronicle please do a more balanced piece on the Microsoft case?   
The issues poised by the states are very real, yet if you read the chronicle
all you get is a public relations campaign, crafted by purposeful statements 
made by favorablelawyers.  We get to hear that competitors should 
"beat Microsoft with products" when Microsoft has a monopoly on the 
operating software and forces computer makers to install Microsoft products.   
Nothing has been written about Microsoft practices called "bundling."  
This is when the operating code is mingled with software code to make other 
products difficult to use or not even possible. (For instance: Word perfect 
can open a Microsoft word file, but not vice versa?)   Nothing is written 
about microsoft’s unrealistic unwillingness to share important segments of 
its code, and its habit of turning program standard code into proprietary 
language so that no other platform but Microsoft will work.  The Windows 
system itself is less than perfect, and is responsible for the virus computer 
problems we face today because of these practices. But readers would not know 
this if they read the chronicle.    No fair reporting yet has been done, 
and that is a shame.

 

Instead, the chronicle readers get to hear jingos about the market and 
competitive advantage that have nothing to do with the particulars of the case.   
Microsoft is being sued for real reasons, not because competitors are jealous.  
There is nothing alleged about these allegations except the fears of timid 
editors who insert the word "alleged" into the print.   Judge Jackson was not 
a "radical."   He was only portrayed as one because of the Microsoft public 
relations campaign.  

 

Is the chronicle only a forum to dispense public relations campaigns?

 

Gino Napoli
Math Teacher @ Terra Nova High School 
Pacifica, California

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