WASHINGTON, February 4: Microsoft Corp and its trade association got into a nasty spat over the role of antitrust law in preserving competition in the high-tech industry.The 1,200-member Software Publishers Association unveiled a list of principles, declaring that the nation's 100-year-old antitrust laws have an important role to play in making sure that no competitor goes too far in promoting its own computer code.
Microsoft immediately denounced the Software Publishers Association, to which it pays $100,000 dues annually, for a "charade" and charged the association had been "co-opted by a few competitors who want to use the government as a weapon against Microsoft."
Microsoft is in a struggle with the justice department over charges it violated a 1995 consent decree aimed at increasing competition in the software industry.
Microsoft won a significant preliminary victory when the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stopped Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig from advising afederal judge in the case.
The Software Publishers Association says its principles are meant to apply not merely to Microsoft, but to anyone in the software industry.
"When it comes to the computer software industry, the Sherman (antitrust) Act isn't dead," Ken Wasch, president of the association, said.
The industry's first principle: "The overriding objective of competition policy as applied to our industry should be to maximize innovation and dynamic competition for the benefit of consumers."
Microsoft says its fight with the justice department is also about principles.
"We believe that the department of justice case is about a fundamental principle and that's that every software company, including Microsoft, must have the ability to constantly improve its products," Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray said.
He said if companies may not improve their products, "consumers will suffer and the future of the US software industry will be undermined."
The trade association principles mention noindividual company but many of the practices it criticizes match alleged behavior for which opponents have criticized Microsoft.
For example, principle three is that the "owner of a dominant operating system" should not design the software "desktop." That decision, the group says, should be left to computer makers.
Microsoft insists that computers using its software should have the same look.
The software trade group also said operators of a "dominant operating system" should not use its power to leverage the sale of its other products. The justice department has accused Microsoft of doing exactly that.
Microsoft's Murray said the committee which drew up the principles included many "Microsoft bashers," such as network software maker Novell Inc, Internet browser archrival Netscape Communications Corp and database software company Oracle Corp.
Wasch said Microsoft had been heard from as well.The trade association's other principles include nondiscriminatory licensing to third-party developers,competitive licensing of software applications to computer makers and equal access to retail customers on store shelves -- as ways to preserve competition.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
