Break Up Microsoft, Software Group Suggests

Mar 04 1999

It's funny to read a lead that begins: "In a confidential report..." I mean, how confidential is a report whose contents are being trumpeted this morning in the Wall Street Journal and on the AP wire?

But that's the way the Journal's John Wilke began his piece this morning. The report itself - adopted two weeks ago by the board of the Software and Information Industries Association - calls for the court to consider breaking up and restructuring Microsoft if the company loses its antitrust battle with the Justice Department. The report also suggests several possible scenarios for the breakup, and identifies concerns like ensuring "equitable access to essential operating-system information" without disrupting the Windows standard.

What's surprising is that Microsoft itself is part of the 1400-member group, reported AP's Ted Bridis. But Wilke said that Microsoft "waged a behind-the-scenes battle to keep the report from being adopted and succeeded in removing a key paragraph at the end of the report that called explicitly for a restructuring of Microsoft or compulsory licensing of the Windows operating system to rivals."

So how did the confidential report get into the hands of these enterprising reporters? Who knows. Wilke noted that Dow Jones - the Journal's parent company - is on the board of the group and that the company did not participate in the vote during which the report was adopted.

Group Endorses Microsoft Breakup
New York Times

Microsoft Peers Urge Revamping if the Firm Loses Antitrust Trial
Wall Street Journal