Gigglebytes, December 8, 1998

Gigglebytes

by Lincoln Spector

December 8, 1998

Know thine Enemy

Another peak into Bill Gates’ E-mail

From: Frank Lee Mideer

To: Bill Gates

Subject: Our Competition

Bill--

Per your request, I have taken a long, hard look at this new competitor. As you suspected, they play hardball, have wide bandwidth, and are a major--perhaps the major--threat to Microsoft’s quest for its rightful place as Ruler of All There Is. What follows is my assessment of, and recommendations for dealing with, the U.S. Government.

First, let’s consider the Government’s strength as a competitor:

It has a large and constant revenue source--almost as big as ours.
It seldom disappoints its customer base, as no one really expects it to work properly.
It has a long and complex set of APIs, referred to generically as laws, to which we may be forced to comply.

It has, at least so far in this country, a legally-sanctioned monopoly on nuclear weapons.

Despite these advantages, the Government has a number of weaknesses that can work in our favor. These include:

It has never been able to stay within its budget.

It’s leadership is divided into camps that fight with each other unceasingly.

Users hate it almost as much as they hate us.

It’s totally dependent on our operating systems, and is therefore expected to stop working at the beginning of the Year 2000.

The Government Threat to Microsoft

At first glance, the U. S. Government does not appear to be viable competition, and seems to be of little consequence in the WAOFT (World At Our Fingertips) scenario. After all, the Government does not make operating systems, office suites, encyclopedias, or even children’s multimedia CD-ROMs staring Barney.

But the Government does make Web pages, and uses them to disseminate information. As such, we must view this entity as an adversary in the all-important race for user eyeballs.

If organizations other than Microsoft are allowed to disseminate information via the Web, it is possible--even likely--that that information may cast Microsoft in a negative light. And the U.S. Government is almost certainly planning to post such information on its various Web sites. If you don’t believe me, consider this irrefutable fact, verified through careful analysis of U.S. federal sites: Government Web pages work seamlessly and properly even when viewed with a non-Microsoft browser.

Worse, the Government appears to be teaming up with a number of our other major enemies. In recent months, it has worked closely with Netscape, IBM, Apple, Sun, and other companies in a court offensive that appears to be suspiciously anti-Microsoft in nature. In fact, amongst all of these enemies, the Government appears to be the ringleader. What other future adversaries will this dangerous conspirator team up with to destroy us? Disney? Chevron? Bolivia?

Defensive Strategies

What’s the best way to deal with the threat from the Government? As an organization, it’s too dispersed and decentralized for us to ring their doorbell and hide. What follows are my recommendations for neutralizing an unchecked Government.

Compatibility issues have always worked for us before, and we should consider them again. Our next major operating system, Windows 00, could be designed to crash whenever used by a Government agency. Admittedly, it would be a considerable technical challenge to create an OS that can tell whether a computer is owned by the private or public sector. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t dismiss this defense simply because of the programming challenges. If creating an OS that’s unstable on Government computers requires it to be unstable on private computers as well, so be it.

The only problem with this plan is the very nature of the Government itself. We could very well produce unstable computers at all levels of the Government and no one would notice.

Another option: Strangle their revenue source. We could do this by requiring that every company that uses Microsoft products pay us a code tax. If our tax is high enough, companies will be forced to choose between paying us and the U.S. Government. Since businesses cannot survive without Microsoft software, the Government will lose money.

In the final analysis, our best bet may be to take the tax option to its logical conclusion and come out with a competing program: Microsoft Government. By placing links to Microsoft Government on the Windows desktop, we can convince a majority of Americans that we are the government, and that any other government is not compatible with America’s business model. Besides, the American people may be ready for a national leader named Bill with absolutely no sex appeal.

* * *

Historical note: Microsoft executive Frank Lee Mideer’s career was cut short when he accidentally sent the above e-mail without first deleting the last sentence. He now works on a Seattle street corner, selling Apples from a cart.

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