[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 86 (Friday, June 26, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7338-S7339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE BATTLE AGAINST MICROSOFT

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, my colleague, the senior Senator from Utah 
came to the Senate floor earlier today to continue his lonely and 
increasingly unsuccessful battle against Microsoft. His statement comes 
one day after the successful release of Microsoft's latest operating 
system software, Windows 98, and only three days after Microsoft won a 
major victory in a ruling by a three-judge panel of the Circuit Court 
of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
  Senator Hatch said this morning that he is disappointed that 
Microsoft ``has regrettably seen fit to deploy a massive PR campaign, 
as opposed to engaging the American public on the basis of the facts 
and the merits.''
  I find Senator Hatch's comments interesting, given that the appeals 
court panel took a long hard look at the very facts that Senator Hatch 
and the Department of Justice claim Microsoft is hiding and ruled that 
Microsoft's integration of Internet Explorer in Windows 95 is not a 
violation of U.S. antitrust law or of the 1995 consent decree. The 
ruling is significant because it covers the same issue that is the 
central focus of the Justice Department's current case against 
Microsoft--whether Microsoft can innovate by integrating new products, 
namely Internet Explorer, into Windows 98.
  The Senator from Utah and the Department of Justice would have barred 
Windows 98 in its present form, frustrating millions of potential 
customers and imposing a major roadblock--the first major roadblock--in 
the way of the continuing triumph of American technology in this most 
cutting edge of all of our industries.
  So Senator Hatch, instead, announced that his Judiciary Committee 
will examine those facts even further, in the hope, apparently, of 
finding something that the appeals court missed, or, as he explains in 
his statement, of finding a new issue with which to attack Microsoft.

  The proper course of action would be precisely the opposite--the 
abandonment by both the Department of Justice and the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee of an unsuccessful and wrongly directed crusade 
against the advancement of American technology.
  I believe we are now relatively assured that the Department of 
Justice will not get the extra $7 million above the President's budget 
request that it asked for to pursue just this course. These actions are 
a waste of the taxpayers' money and represent the use of the taxpayers' 
money for the pursuit of private antitrust remedies which, if they are 
appropriate at all, should be financed by the competitors who seek 
them.
  Regrettably, Mr. President, Senator Hatch and the Department of 
Justice are little interested in the facts or merits of the case but 
purely interested in bringing the most successful software company in 
the Nation to its knees, so that less successful, less competitive 
companies, that do not have the ability to succeed on their own, can do 
so with the help of the Clinton administration's Justice Department 
aided and abetted by the senior Senator from Utah.
  Senator Hatch also discussed the release of a paper this week by the 
Software Publisher's Association attacking Microsoft's server business. 
Interestingly enough, this paper was released just 10 days after 
Microsoft's biggest competitor in the server business, Sun 
Microsystems, joined the Association.

[[Page S7339]]

  The SPA paper claims that Microsoft is attempting to leverage its 
market dominance in desktop computer operating systems to gain control 
of the market for network servers with Windows NT.
  Mr. President, Windows NT has enjoyed great success because it offers 
the price and performance Microsoft's customers demand. Microsoft 
Windows NT and the PC model have enabled a new generation of lower-
priced computing for businesses worldwide. In fact, a recent study by 
the Business Research Group found that corporate systems based on 
Windows NT Server cost 52 percent less than comparable systems from 
Microsoft's biggest competitor.
  It is not rocket science to determine that Microsoft's success is due 
to its ability to provide high performance software at low prices. That 
Senator Hatch and Microsoft's competitors represented by the Software 
Publishers Association want the American people to believe that 
Microsoft should be punished for providing consumers want at prices 
consumers like is to turn the public interest on its head.
  Senator Hatch and the Justice Department are fighting a losing 
battle, but in the process, are trampling on an American principle I 
and millions of Americans like me hold dear. That principle is that the 
free market economy, where innovation and unhindered competition have 
made this country the most successful economy in the world, should 
continue untrammeled by either Senator Hatch or the Clinton Justice 
Department.

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