.

A L S O__T O D A Y Folk rock of ages By Geoff Edgers Roger McGuinn's Web site is an experiment in communal musical memory - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K HTML frames: What are they good for? When are they more cumbersome than helpful? Join the discussion in the Table Talk's Digital Culture area - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y The geeks and the aliens By Janelle Brown Why are the tech industry's best and brightest so determined to spearhead the hunt for extraterrestrials? (05/06/98) Web-ability By Mike Britten Even people who aren't in the position to enjoy all the Web's bells and whistles ought to be able to access its information (05/05/98) The gene genie By Jeffrey Obser Jeremy Rifkin's new book, "The Biotech Century," warns of a genetic-bazaar future. (05/05/98) Groveling for dollars By Greg Costikyan Bugs, babes and booze: For game developers rustling up financing, there's a million potholes on the road to success (05/01/98) The 21st Challenge No. 8 Results By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau (05/01/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - _______

NOTHING MUST STOP WINDOWS 98! | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - Microsoft has always been adept at managing users' expectations of new products -- but now, for legal reasons, it has chosen to build up the formerly modest Windows 98 into an economy-salvaging, civilization-rescuing miracle machine that we must not delay. The tactic is likely to backfire once the public gets its hands on the doubtless useful but hardly paradigm-shattering product. But Microsoft's "rally" has caught the company in a much larger paradox, a corporate Catch-22 that recent coverage of the controversy has occasionally touched upon, in stray quotes, but never fully laid out. The more loudly the company protests that Windows 98 is essential to the U.S. economy, human progress and world peace, the more ammunition it hands its opponents. Last month, Gates insisted to the U.S. Senate that his company is perennially vulnerable to new competitors snapping at its heels; this month he's holding the national well-being for ransom by insisting that any government interference with a single product release will unleash doom upon us all. Out of one side of its mouth, Microsoft tells us it's no monopoly; out of the other, it insists that it's the sole engine driving our economy. Well, Bill, which is it? You can't have it both ways. I don't doubt that a delay of Windows 98 would create some disruption in the computer marketplace, but any company with its ears to the ground or eyes on the headlines has had plenty of opportunities to hedge its bets. A CompUSA exec told the rally it had already printed 26 million newspaper inserts featuring the new product; if he'd been reading the papers himself he might have put that print order on hold. Will financial markets really tumble if there's an antitrust move against Microsoft? No one knows, but this week the company's own statements made such an outcome more likely. Is the computer industry really quaking in its boots at the prospect that Justice might block Windows 98? The very nature of Microsoft's power makes it impossible to find an uncompromised answer. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (who has his own ax to grind, since his state, Utah, is home to some of Microsoft's competitors) suggested that the "friends" Microsoft gathered on the New York podium weren't all there by choice -- but were afraid of retribution from Gates if they didn't show their solidarity. Whether he's right or wrong, it's significant that Microsoft can now no longer even present its case without creating the suspicion of corporate thuggery. Microsoft, it seems, has become such a behemoth that it can no longer say or do anything without contradicting itself, stepping on its own toes or cutting itself off at the ankles. Consider the analogy Gates raised in New York, when he suggested that an antitrust-mandated Windows 98 delay would be "like telling General Motors they cannot come out with new cars this fall." Gates no doubt meant to associate his company's product with the automobile, an icon of everyday usefulness that the general public can relate to more readily than an intellectual abstraction like a computer operating system. But instead, any listener with a sense of history instantly flashed on the infamous motto, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" (actually a popular misquotation of the somewhat less obnoxious statement GM chairman Charles Wilson made at his 1952 Senate confirmation hearings for the post of secretary of defense: "For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa"). That is not the kind of arrogant association an executive in Gates' present situation wants to invoke. Then again, even at the height of its identification with the U.S. economy, General Motors never had Microsoft's 90 percent share of its market. An exchange Tuesday on the Senate floor between Hatch and Microsoft supporter Slade Gorton, R-Wash., turned into a Rolling Stones trivia duel. Hatch -- playing off Microsoft's use of the Rolling Stones tune "Start Me Up" to market Windows 95, and referring to his charges of Microsoft bullying -- suggested that Windows 98's theme song should be "Under My Thumb." Gorton responded that Microsoft could instead use "Satisfaction," since "Microsoft has been satisfying their customers for 20 years." Senator Gorton needs to brush up on his Jagger. You don't need to be a Stones expert to know that the refrain of the 1965 song is "I can't get no satisfaction." SALON | May 7, 1998 - - - - - - - - - E-mail Scott Rosenberg. - - - - - - - - - R E L A T E D_A R T I C L E S Microsoft's PR machine "Innovate or die" becomes "innovate or buy." By Scott Rosenberg. (April 15, 1998) All Gates, all the time From the Web to Capitol Hill, there's no escaping Bill. By Scott Rosenberg. (March 5, 1998) They know what's best for you Microsoft's troubles in court epitomize the computer industry's arrogant attitude toward customers. By Scott Rosenberg. (Jan. 16, 1998)