Blame Shifted in MS Anti-Trust Case (2/25/98)
Federal investigators looking into charges that Microsoft is an evil, oversized, monopolistic corporation bent on destroying any and all competitors in its mad rush to power and global domination looked away from the Seattle company for the first time today."Sure, Microsoft is evil. Everyone knows that," said the lead investigator. "But is it really their fault? We may have found the true conspirators in the Microsoft empire."
He indicated that the panel would soon be taking a look at end users who, between 1985 and 1993, chose Microsoft Windows and IBM-compatibles as their computing system.
"If anyone's to blame for Microsoft's dominance, it's them," he explained. "You know, the ones who bought $2,000 computer systems so that they could catalog their recipes. The people who bought computers because 'they thought they needed one'. The people who wanted to take work home. Nobody should want to take their work home with them. We think they're the ones that are really to blame."
In the mid 1980's, many people bought IBM-compatible personal computers so they could run the leading spreadsheet package at the time, Lotus 1-2-3, despite the fact that studies have shown that 99% of all spreadsheet functions performed in the home can be performed easier with a solar calculator and a notepad. If Windows 95 bootup times are taken into account, the SC-N method, as it's known, also takes 60% less time.
Since then, an increasingly uninformed population has purchased Windows-based PC's in droves, ignoring other options until those options became less and less viable.
Microsoft may not be entirely off the hook, however. Sources say that prosecutors are looking at laws designed to protect the exploitation of the weak and the stupid, to see if some kind of class action case can be made against the company.
