I read your article in today's L.A.Times with considerable interest. But I think you have confused two things in your discussion of economies of scale.(posted 8751 days ago)There are indeed considerable benefits to everyone using the same software, or doing things the same way. But this benefit stems from standards, not market domination. We've known for a long time that even a bad standard is better than none, in nearly all situations.
You partly recognize this distinction by referring to "the benefits of bigness, or at least coordination." But it really is coordination that's involved, not bigness and predatory policies like Microsoft's.
Your argument is also needlessly weakened by a couple of statements of dubious validity. For example, you say "It seems to be easier to get Microsoft FrontPage working well when the Web server it uploads files to is running Microsoft Internet Information Sever rather than when it is running open-source Apache." I don't think this is true. There's no logical connection between the server-side software and the Web-page "authoring tools" (as they are known these days). What I think you are referring to is the connection between Microsoft's FrontPage and its browser, which is full of proprietary (and non-standard) features. It's possible that Apache might have difficulties serving Web pages that contain some of the more esoteric features (or bugs!) of the Microsoft software; but Apache has a reputation for reliability and robustness, which is why it has taken over the great majority of the Web servers. So I doubt that there's really a problem there. In any case, there's no reason why the Apache server should make FrontPage work less well. Your may be talking about a real interoperability problem, but if so, I think you have mis-identified it.
Another shaky statement is the assertion that "Software for minicomputers stagnated in the 1980s because each brand's version of the Unix operating system was incompatible with the others." I've used many of those different "flavors" of Unix. While the differences are a nightmare from a system administrator's point of view, the differences are really quite minor from the user's perspective. And why? Because the UNIX community quickly realized they needed standards, and agreed on a set (ever hear of "POSIX"?). Instead, the real problem was that AT&T, the copyright owner of UNIX, began restricting access to the source code. Whereas they had formerly given away the source free, or nearly so, to universities -- which led to the great profusion of new and productive features at your own university, so that "Berkeley UNIX" is a well-known phrase in the software comminuty -- AT&T started charging something like $50k or more for a source license. It was these restrictions that led to the invention of Linux; and this open-source community has now breathed fresh life into the UNIX movement. In short, now that source code is freely available, there are thousands of people working on improvements to Linux, while the closed-source Unices languish and are full of bugs and problems (I can attest to having encountered several in the past year; our system administrator has dealt with these matters by replacing the proprietary utilities with open-source versions that work better.)
Here, again, the benefits flow not from bigness and market domination, but from standards and openness, as opposed to proprietary "closed" code and conventions.
An additional point not covered in your article is the notorious lack of innovation displayed by Microsoft. It's well known that the "Windows" model was copied from Apple's user interface -- and it's a second-hand theft at that, as the whole thing arose at Xerox PARC rather than at Apple. Microsoft wasn't interested in the Internet until Netscape began to be successful.
There are many other examples, but you get the idea. The result has been that Microsoft has done rather badly in areas outside of PC operating systems, where they managed to obtain a monopoly early and dominated the market. Look at their difficulties in the hand-held area, where Windows CE is regarded as slow and underpowered, and has only a relatively small fraction of that market. A lot of what Microsoft touts as innovation arose in other companies they later acquired by using their monopoly power. Many people in the software industry have argued that consumers would have much better PC software today if Microsoft had not deprived them of the opportunity to have it. The inroads that Linux is making on the desktop today suggest this is true.
It sounds as if the anti-trust people are re-fighting previous wars, and don't understand much about what's important in the area of software. It's not that times have changed, but that this is a different type of business than the heavy industries that were the monopolists of the past. The efficiencies in software come from standards, not bigness. And standards thrive in an atmosphere of cooperation, not cut-throat competition.
It's likely that the most productive move the courts could make would be to force Microsoft to publish its source code. Open code would quickly get cleaned up and improved; consumers would benefit; and in the long run, Microsoft would have won the battle for domination it has fought for so long. "Breaking up" Microsoft looks like a futile effort, in contrast. This isn't the phone company, or Standard Oil. --