Microsoft To Fall Under Tpc's Spotlight
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 14, 1995
THE Trade Practices Commission has agreed to look into complaints about Microsoft from a few local companies, including Oz-Email, but a spokeswoman told CyberSpy that this does not amount to an "investigation". She said the TPC had merely told the complainants to go away and prepare further substantiation for their claims. When the evidence is in, the TPC can decide whether it should proceed to haul Microsoft over the coals, as Judge Stanley Sporkin did in the United States three weeks ago. In itself, the On Australia joint venture between Microsoft and Telecom would only be a breach of the Trade Practices Act if it could be shown to concentrate the market to the detriment of the consumer by predatory pricing or marketing practices. But the belief in some quarters is that it will be easier to nail the venture under other sections of the Act. If, for example, On Australia was to buy its Austpac transmission capacity from Telecom at any rate lower than that available to another buyer of the same volume, it could be in breach of section 46 of the Act, which prevents cross-subsidies between businesses of dominant market players.
CYBER ROMANCE
PUT the science back into dating. One of the surprise hits at Sydney's PC95 show last week was Romantic Adventures! - a contribution from Bangladeshi company Orion Technologies. It is described as "life-changing" software which keeps the course of true love running smoothly, if somewhat expensively. Sit your new person down to answer the simple computerised questionnaire. Each partner gets to rate activities, locations and "behaviours" by romantic quotient, from zero to 100. A woman might, for instance, give a low rating to her partner wearing Brut and hang-gliding in New Zealand, while rating more favourably the quaffing of kamikaze cocktails on a yacht in the Caribbean. The software supplies approximate prices and duration of activities - Brut comes cheap these days. Then, when the happy couple find themselves with time on their hands, the romantic one simply consults the database for an activity acceptable to the recipient and to the perpetrator's budget and time available. There's even an aptly named "contact manager" for recording details of old flames. The demonstration by Orion manager, Jamil Azher, included the following example: "Great lady. However has now got a lousy husband whom I despise." Just as well to remember these things. Orion was over here looking for distributors. If you're interested, the address is: kevinb@sos.net
BY THE BOOK
JUDGE Stanley Sporkin, who overturned Microsoft's antitrust deal with the US Justice Department, was influenced by a biography of Bill Gates, Microsoft's lawyers have claimed.
Microsoft filed a brief in the US Federal Appeals Court last week to overturn Judge Sporkin's decision that dismissed the company's attempt to settle antitrust charges out of court. Microsoft's lawyers asked that the judge be disqualified from the case, contending he had relied for much of his information on Hard Drive, an unauthorised biography of Gates by two US reporters, James Wallace and Jim Erickson.
"It is apparent that in Judge Sporkin's mind, a book based largely on conversations with Microsoft's competitors and disgruntled former employees had replaced the complaint as the yardstick with which the sufficiency of the consent decree was to be measured," said a lawyer. All we can say is that it's lucky Judge Sporkin did not read the other unauthorised biography, Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, which is the definitive "inside" look at Gates's Napoleonic rise in the computer industry. Manes and Andrews' investigative work demolishes far more myths about Gates (some, as they point out, created by Gates himself) than Hard Drive, and does it in a much more academically rigorous but highly readable manner, which sometimes brings to mind the style of writer Tom Wolfe. Sadly, the book is not available in Australia, but its publishers are Brockman Inc., (fax: 0011-1-212-9355533, e-mail krup@brockman.com).
SINKING FEELING
SOFTWARE was apparently not to blame for the shock disintegration of oneAustralia. Although design simulation software was relied upon heavily in building and testing the yacht, the oneAustralia team nobly did not fall back on the "computer-made-me-do-it" excuse so beloved of bank clerks and Telecom operatives. Instead, said Andy Dovell, a partner at Ian Murray & Associates, 1 member of the Fluid Thinking design team which conceived and built oneAustralia, "Software is nothing more than a wrench in your toolbag. It's still the guy holding the end of the wrench." A year ago, Fluid Thinking was considerably more gung-ho about the role of computers in boat design. "There have been races that were won on the helm's decision, but usually they are won on technology," Fluid Thinking's computational manager, Ian Burns, said at the time. Skipper John Bertrand also made comments last year that in hindsight are redolent with irony. He told the Herald that among its various computer models, oneAustralia would have a record of the weather patterns in San Diego for the past 20 years, but he admitted: "There is a lot of work to be done in the area of meteorology".
HARVEY NORMAN'S NATIONAL TOP 10 CD-ROM GAMES
1 Myst Dataflow $129.95
2 Wing Commander 3 Electronic Arts $124.95
3 Under a Killing
Moon Sega-Ozisoft $99.95
4 US Navy Fighters Electronic Arts $99.95
5 Where in the World is
Carmen San Diego Dataflow $99.95
6 Microsoft Encarta Microsoft $179.95
7 Doom II Sega-Ozisoft $89.95
8 Harry and the
Haunted House Dataflow $79.95
9 Magic Carpet Electronic Arts $99.95
10 PGA Tour Golf Electronic Arts $89.95
© 1995 Sydney Morning Herald
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