No surprises? We weren’t expecting him to find in our favor on the foreclosure issue.
Will it be difficult to go on with business as usual during the long appeal? One of the great things about our culture is that we always operate knowing that projects we work on are key to the success and survival of the company. We’ve never had a culture where we say, “Boy, we’re in great shape,” because we know how dynamic the industry really is. We know we have to replace our products in a dramatic way. Or people will just keep using the current version of Windows or Office. The last big milestone for Microsoft was 1995 where we shipped Windows 95, and that first phase of the Internet was just getting started. And that was really about browsing, you could browse out and get information on the Internet. And so we announced a series of things we were going to do to support the Internet, just a whole ton of stuff. Now with the shipment of Windows 2000 we have exactly the analogous situation. That’s a great platform, it’s going to do the same things for us that Windows 95 did. But now we have substantial resources to take this second phase of the Internet, which will draw on the strengths of a software company with a software platform, even more than the first phase did. That gets [our people] very excited because they know their work is key to the success of this company. There is a certain irony that somebody says we have this enduring position that’s unassailable, like some guy who owns the only copper mine in the world. The truth is very much the opposite. The company faces challenges and we need to pull together as a team and do great work. Having this lawsuit that says we shouldn’t have supported the Internet in Windows, that just draws us together that much more.
Do you feel you did all you could during the settlement talks? Believe me, in the last four weeks, I haven’t had a single night at home. And that’s mostly because of late-night discussions on the phone, most of them with the mediator. Every weekend I’ve been working on the thing every day until word came, because of what the mediator heard from the states, all of our good ideas became moot.
You were just in Washington D.C talking to legislators. Do you have any hope you can get relief from Congress or a new administration? No. The lawsuit has a judicial path. The appeals court understands the rule of law in this country. They’ll be able to see where this thing has gone off track and do the right thing. So in no way are we lobbying, requesting, any type of activity by the Congress.
Why is the Next Generation Windows Services initiative so important? The Internet today is mostly about following links and reading pages. It’s just the user seeing one big screen of information. Fortunately, Microsoft was the first company to really get behind [the Web language] XML. That XML standard is a key element in what is going to allow the Web to become so much better in this new phase. The user is back in control, not only customizing their screen, or deciding what they want to be notified of, but actually doing their knowledge work, taking something like a plan or a forecast and seeing that breadth of information through the power of their PC.
Your competitors say maybe Microsoft can’t pull this off. . . . Understand the irony of people saying that we face intense competition, and saying we don’t face intense competition. People have to be consistent one way or the other. And even an article written by a writer ought to be consistent one way or another. Either it should say that we do face intense competition-which is a point of view I’d agree with-and we have to rise to that challenge with our smart people. Or, as was suggested by the government, there’s absolutely no way anybody else could do platforms or compete, which of course is complete nonsense. Remember when they said Microsoft couldn’t move on Internet time? Remember that old [Marc] Andreessen quote that we were like a lumbering bear and he was like a little wolf? Well, look back on the first five years of the Internet. Who updated their browser and innovated in their browser faster? Who got the most web servers out there?
Your critics deal with that contradiction by saying that the playing field isn’t level. People at Sun Microsystems complain about your investments in cable and wireless, and say you’re trying to buy cooperation. Does that hold up to even two cents of analysis? What percentage of Windows users have we invested in? You have to laugh the minute Sun says that. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. And the fact that it’s made as an attack on our ethics, and the fact that reporters are willing to take it, that’s very disappointing.
Are you surprised that Open Source has gone as far as it has? No, Open Source will always be around. And it will always be a form of competition to Microsoft. It is an unusual form of competition, but yes, we face that as competition.
In the Judge’s finding of fact, he dismissed it outright. No, he said that Linux only runs on servers! Read what he said! Enjoy the humor. Go find the findings of fact and read what he said about Linux and compare that to the world you live in.
It looks like with the expedited schedule there’s less likelihood of a breakup remedy being on the table. Did you ever think that had a chance of happening? It’s outrageous that any of the plaintiffs floated the idea.
AOL just came out with a new version of the Netscape browser and it seems to moving towards services, too. AOL is a hard-core competitor, let’s face it. But the main overlap there is with consumer [as opposed to business] customers. They want all our customers, but when it comes to knowledge workers and the rich things they do, I would claim to you that only a very innovative software company can extend the boundaries of that activity.
You always operate on the premise that Microsoft is in a very competitive situation. But you have a double gamble: in court and this new initiative. Do you consider this a particularly risky time for Microsoft? No. Pick a year, pick any year in our history, and I’ll tell you about how much risk we were taking in trying to drive the frontiers of software forward. And I’ll show you the headlines written in that year-any year-[saying] this is the year that Microsoft has reached its peak. This is the year that Microsoft no longer matters. Yeah, it’s high-risk today, and I’m glad that’s recognized. But the kind of things we do in pushing the boundaries and shifting paradigms in order to stay a leader, that’s always going to be risky. And if you’ve got competitors who are willing to use the legal system to attack, you’re going to face two kinds of attacks, at least: their attempts to use government budgets and the legal system to undermine you, and whatever they happen to do in the marketplace.
Steve Ballmer said to us recently that the responsibility of being CEO was more burdensome that he had expected. Well, I told him before he took the job that it was an inhuman job. It makes infinite demands on you, and I feel very lucky that I have Steve. I think he’s stepping into the shoes exactly the way I hoped he would.
