DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The Supreme Court judges are weighing in on the Microsoft antitrust suit. In a line that sounds scripted by one of Microsoft’s attorneys, Judge A. Raymond Randolph (who has ruled in favor of MSFT in the past) opined that Windows without a browser is like “a clock-radio without the clock.”

Let’s think about that for a minute. On the one hand, you have a clock-radio, which may or may not have a clock. On the other, an x86-based PC running Windows, which may or may not have a web browser.

A clock-radio serves one primary purpose: producing noise at a predetermined time. The noise may be an alarm, or may be broadcast talk, music, or commercials, or smarmy schlock jocks yipping at one another to canned laughter… e.g., the radio. As a secondary purpose, a clock-radio may be used as just a radio, although it’s safe to say very few people would buy a clock-radio if they don’t need its clock-specific functionality. A clock-radio without a clock, we can conclude, is a radio: useful in some contexts, none of which are the ones where a clock-radio with a clock excels. In other words, and to clearly state the point of Randolph’s analogy, a clock-radio without a clock is useless.

In contrast, a personal computer without a web browser — even one running Windows — serves up hundreds of useful functions. I’ll skip the list and assume that you, unlike Judge Randolph, can imagine the utility of a PC minus a web browser. Here is a hint: step back in time about 5 years, to an era when millions of people owned personal computers, and none of them had a web browser.

Now let’s examine the context in which Randolph’s statement was made. Part of the antitrust suit is concerned with MSFT’s bundling of its web browser, Internet Explorer, with its operating system, Windows. The suit isn’t about whether users can have a web browser or not; it’s about Microsoft’s forcing users to have IE even if they don’t want it. Randolph’s analogy implies that unless MSFT bundles IE, Windows users can’t have a web browser at all.

Clearly, this implication is a fantasy, perhaps believed by MSFT’s executives and PR team, but a fantasy nonetheless. Windows users are free and have for years been free to choose from Netscape Navigator, Opera, or any of a variety of browsers that, in some cases, beat IE in features and performance, and match it in price ($0).

So where does all this leave Judge A. Raymond Randolph? Our best guess: on Microsoft’s payroll.