FEAR & LOATHING IN CYBERSPACE

Of Heroes and Villains in the Information Age

Michael D. Bush, PhD

Brigham Young University

This article is the second in a three-part series that was published in the industry newsletter, the Multimedia Monitor, beginning with the November 1996 issue. Copyright 1996 and 1997, Phillips Business Information, Inc. For more information about the Monitor contact 1-301/424-3338 (Inside U.S. 1/800-777-5006) Fax 301/309-3847. EMAIL [email protected] Appears here by permission.

In this series we have been looking at Fear and Loathing in Cyberspace. Nowhere has such sentiment been in evidence than in November's COMDEX where Microsoft apparently spread its wares over an acre of exhibit floor space. Based on reports from some sources, Gates Hate was omnipresent. In this second of our three parts we continue our examination of this phenomenon, as we seek to define the salient characteristics of the heroes and villains of the Information Age.

In Part I we compared the successes of Apple and Microsoft, erstwhile partners in the days of Apple BASIC as well as courtroom enemies during the time Apple was bringing suit against their former friend and ally for supposedly stealing the look and feel of the Mac OS for use in Microsoft Windows. Such a conflict was perhaps understandable, given the similar age and background of those two companies. Here was a classic after school rumble of two jealous schoolboys fighting over the favors of the class beauty, who probably would have paid no more attention to the boys' altercation than did the marketplace to Apple's suit against Microsoft. After all Apple had lifted many of its good ideas from Xerox. Why should they be upset at Microsoft whom they were accusing of doing pretty much what Apple had already pulled off?

Different from this conflict are those between IBM and Microsoft on the one hand and Microsoft and WordPerfect on the other. For example, consideration of Microsoft and IBM brings our imaginations to conjure up a picture of a skinny geek kid kicking beach sand in the face of John Wayne himself. The Duke might be one old dude, but if you happen to cross him, watch out Nelly! While this comparison puts Microsoft and IBM on a David and Goliath-type footing, the conflict between Microsoft and WordPerfect was certainly more evenly matched, although WordPerfect had succeeded in garnering over 60% of the word processor market. A formidable lead indeed!

In this chapter of our story we will examine these two conflicts in our quest for the heroes and villains of the Information Age. After all, history unheeded is ever so much like a warning unheard.

A Longtime Loyal IBM Fan

First a short digression. My interest in IBM began in the Middle Ages of the Computing Era. I wrote my first programs for the IBM 7040/1401 (Yes, Rockley, we did use punched cards!). After dropping my programmer's training wheels in my move to the IBM 360 a couple of years later, I finally reached full speed on an IBM 370. I remember so well when they upgraded that machine (located 90 miles away from our satellite campus) from 4 to a whopping 8 megabytes of main memory. About three years after that event I did not feel disloyal at all when they disconnected the 370 at my next campus and plugged in the Amdahl 470. After all, it was the same operating system. Why, with TSO, JCL, and PL/1 and all, I hardly ever knew that I had left the shadow of Big Blue.

My loyalty was only reinforced when in the middle of these pages of my history I was required to use a machine of the "competition." I knew things were different when, instead of a neat looking Customer Service Engineer, I had to deal with a sloppy looking little guy in baggy pants and tenni-runners. One of the most painful events in my recollection was dealing with this fellow one day when I had the misfortune of reporting that his card reader was not working properly. I will never forget his delivery of what amounted to a condescending lecture, demonstration, and general-purpose review session of Card Reading 101. Okay, it was only a look he gave me, but it said loud and clear, "You idiot!" In any case, it was before he had tried the card deck himself, because he discovered in due course that the machine was in fact malfunctioning. Oh how I longed to see once again the guys in white shirts and ties!

Although during my career in the Department of Defense we used various clones rather than the "real thing," my work there placed me squarely in the MS-DOS world. Nevertheless, despite this minor but forced infidelity, I remained in my heart a loyal fan of Big Blue.

IBM vs. Microsoft

The purpose of that digression is to establish my credibility as one who holds immense respect for products of the International Business Machines Corporation. This adds perspective to our examination of a couple of the difficulties that IBM has had in their competition with Microsoft and helps us find more characteristics of heroes and villains.

Despite my long-standing admiration of IBM, my faith in my favorite brand began to wane in 1990 or so when we purchased for our lab two machines for research. One was an IBM PS/2 Model 90 and the other was a Compaq 386/33. The first problem we encountered was a certain difficulty obtaining Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) cards. The second became apparent when we would sit down to work at the machines. The Compaq booted faster and was generally a snappier machine during the operation of virtually any application.

To the disbelief of my "command-line commando" colleagues, I had already decided that graphical user interfaces (GUI) made a great deal of sense. It was also clear that Windows was quickly becoming de rigueur within the MS-DOS-oriented world of interactive training materials development (Monitor, 11/89). Finally, the limitations of the Intel architecture with its 64KB memory segment problem became all too apparent and a change was in order (Monitor, 6/92). The Macintosh had been able to address lots of contiguous memory from the beginning and the Intel architecture only overcame this problem with the 80386 with its 32 bit address space. Unfortunately, operating system software in the form of MS-DOS and Windows lagged seriously behind the capabilities of the hardware.

The only way, therefore, to take advantage of the 80386 was supposed to be to use the 32 bit version of OS/2 that had long been forthcoming. It was IBM's plan. It was Microsoft's. Or so we were led to believe in the beginning. Microsoft started with the idea that Windows would be the bridge environment between DOS and OS/2. The original plan in fact was for both systems to have virtually the same interface, Program Manager. Such a strategy was evident in the name of one of the popular conferences of 1991, the Windows and OS/2 Conference.

Regretfully, the plan fell apart for any one or more of several reasons. Writers in 1991 mentioned IBM's desire to "maintain a proprietary veneer on its version of OS/2" (Alan Alper, Consumer Systems News, February 25, 1991).

We get a slightly different take in reading Gates' own explanation in an interview with David Allison of the Division of Computers, Information, and Society at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History:

OS/2 was a schizophrenic product. We kept saying, "Let's add features. But no let's make it smaller. Let's do the 386 version." But no, IBM made some commitment to some 286 customer. A very painful effort. And a very compromised piece of technology as a result. We then started up a parallel effort to do, what at the time was called OS/2 3.0, starting from scratch, even though we'd give it that same name. And that later became, as IBM and Microsoft went their own way, that became the project that shipped in 1993 as Microsoft Windows NT. But the work was begun on that as early as 1987. Then Cutler came in and the work really started in a big way in 1989. (See http://innovate.si.edu/history/gates/gatestoc.htm).

Another possibility is that IBM, realizing the good deal that Microsoft had, wanted to remove Microsoft from their position of special consideration in their relationship with Big Blue. Microsoft had been pushing both Windows and OS/2 and IBM didn't like the attention Windows was getting.

Relations deteriorated, and here is the sand kicking part. As time passed, Microsoft decided to refuse to focus on OS/2 and Presentation Manager as IBM had wanted. The Windows API was kept for the new 32 bit system instead of Presentation Manager, and the two (OS/2 with a Windows interface) eventually became Windows NT. For many months (if not years) following the rift, IBM's policy was to ignore Windows. Their determination was that OS/2 was the official IBM platform of choice, and they did not hesitate to push that environment on any project in which they were involved, despite the fact that they were experiencing a serious lack of software applications and tools. Many analysts of the day predicted that IBM's system would emerge as the clear winner in the battle for the attention of the desktops of corporations everywhere.

Furthermore, IBM was not simply content to do battle in the software world. It became quickly clear that they wanted to assert their position in the hardware area as well. Their approach with the IBM PC had previously been to open the machine to third-party developers. I remember very well the journalists writing about the impressive documentation that was available at the announcement of the machine (Monitor, 6/92). Unfortunately, their determination was that as they had lost control of the architecture, they had also lost a significant revenue stream. Wanting to regain this control, they released the MicroChannel Architecture (MCA) in their line of PS/2 personal computers, technically a very elegant approach to upgrading the aging PC and PC/AT architecture. IBM's desire to wrest control (read revenue!) from the marketplace prompted them to place onerous licensing fees on third party suppliers of expansion cards. Moreover, even those who did not mind paying the fees to sell hardware had to wait extended periods of time to receive approval from IBM before they could their PS/2 enhancements.

It seems clear to me that there were serious errors made throughout this period. First of all, it was foolish for IBM to want to continue to shoehorn OS/2 into a system that was basically flawed architecturally, the 80286 generation ("brain dead" as some called it, due to the problems signaled by the pages and pages of errata that Intel had published). Secondly, open architectures have always been important for obtaining success in the microcomputer industry. They way IBM approached MCA doomed them to failure from the beginning.

Throughout most of this I remained a loyal IBM fan. I dutifully installed each version of OS/2 since 1990. I tried Version 1.0, despite the fact that it had no graphical user interface to speak of nor any really useful applications like a good WYSIWG word processor! Version 2.0 tempted me, although it still did not have very many really good applications. WordPerfect for OS/2 left a lot to be desired, so I returned to Word for Windows! And finally I bought Version 3.0 Warp, despite that there were still no really good applications I could afford. The icing on the cake was the real kicker I describe below!

Just before Warp I had purchased a really super piece of IBM hardware, an IBM WindSurfer card. It was a DSP-based product (digital signal processor) that could do data modem, fax modem, sound card, and MIDI adapter. I was not too disappointed initially that I could not get my Delrina's WinFax Pro to run under Windows. After all the Windows and OS/2 fax software that came with the package was pretty good, so I still could still run under Word for Windows for my word processing and fax transmissions. Unfortunately the OS/2 support for the WindSurfer was dismal at best! Not to mention of course that if I were going to complete my move to OS/2, I would have to go out and purchase a new word processor to get rid of Word for Windows.

During my experience, I found OS/2 to be definitely more robust than Windows. The object-oriented environment kind of grew on me. The multitasking worked flawlessly: it was really way cool to see a disk formatting in one window while I continued to get good performance doing my other tasks. I set up Novell's Netware Lite on a virtual machine represented by one window to get my home office network up and running as I did other stuff in other windows. But here I sit, writing this using Word 7.0 for Windows 95, my loyalty to Big Blue obviously compromised!

Am I a traitor? Well, I certainly tried not to be! Unfortunately for IBM, I was not the only client who made similar decisions as is summarized in the following excerpt from a recent issue of Datamation:

There is an obvious irony here. Gates said for a very long time (at least in terms of PC life cycles) that developers should support both OS/2 and Windows. Windows was to be the transition environment that would move people from DOS to OS/2. Microsoft even worked closely with MicroGrafix in the creation of the Mirror product to help solve the code-porting problem between the two environments. But, as we will see below, companies chose not to follow his advice.

So, continuing our search for the characteristics of heroism and villainy, who is the hero in this Microsoft vs. IBM chapter of our story? IBM? Well, was it their fault that they were never able to get a wide selection of popular applications running under OS/2? They even got a boost from an anti-Microsoft coalition that was formed in 1991 as we will see below. They have seen to it that there has been good usable software available, but these are not the kinds of applications that were so qualitatively superior that people were willing to junk their current stuff to go out buy new OS/2 apps. Is it their fault that the MCA architecture has lacked sufficient market players building on its capabilities to keep it in the forefront of buyers' mind space? Their conduct regarding licensing certainly did not help.

My assessment of these two issues is that Microsoft has virtually won the war of operating systems, not so much as a result of their ability to go after IBM and compete on Big Blue's own turf, but because Big Blue has so poorly waged the conflict. Their tendency toward proprietary characteristics for software and hardware both, combined with their higher prices, seems to have relegated them to second class citizen status in the world of microcomputer hardware and operating system software! Time will tell if they can turn the situation around, but for the moment they are definitely not in the hero category.

WordPerfect vs. Microsoft

The second phase of this chapter in our saga involves a fall from preeminence not unlike that of Napoleon at Waterloo. Like Napoleon's dominance in Europe, WordPerfect was in charge of the word processor marketplace. They ruled! Nor were their users casual in any way in their commitment, for they were people who had broken the code and belonged to the club. They had mastered the totally unintuitive code of arcane keystrokes through their sheer effort and with the hand-holding they had at their constant disposal, customer support that was surpassed by no other vendor. As described by Bill Howard of PC Magazine,

My own experience with WordPerfect began somewhat in 1985, when I saw a review of their software in InfoWorld in which they received the highest rating the publication was giving: four stars. They entered my consciousness once again in the early 90's when I saw colleagues using the software and raving about its power. I had accepted the advice of one of the computer publication pundits who said that it made no sense to use software that required the user to use un-intuitive key stroke sequences for interacting with the software and for formatting the document and thus stuck with Ashton-Tate's Framework and later Microsoft's Word for DOS.

I nevertheless ran the WordPerfect software one day to convert some files I had received from a colleague and found I could not exit the program. I had to give in to the last resort: reboot my computer to get back to work! How could I possibly know that the F7 key was the one I needed to press to exit the program?! I can't swear to it, but I seem to remember that WordPerfect had ignored the convention that Lotus had begun long before of making the F1 key standard for seeking online help. It sure seems to me that pressing this magical key for help did not work as it has for many software packages for many years now.

Luckily for WordPerfect, the type of travail I experienced apparently had no significant impact on the rest of the computer industry, at least for a while. Over a six-year period they marked steady progress as they moved to their lofty heights in the word processing market.

During this time, Microsoft worked and worked with Word for DOS, trying to chip away at WordPerfect's lead. Rather than continuing to only play WordPerfect's game, however, they decided to move the conflict to a new battleground.

Gates' had seen the same work at Xerox PARC that had inspired Steve Jobs to do Apple's Lisa and Macintosh. Furthermore, Gates had worked with Apple on these new machines and thus had seized the significance of the graphical user interface. He would not rest until he had added word processing to such an environment. This move would take time, because computers in general had to move forward in their capabilities, and Windows had to mature to Version 2.0 before this was possible on the Intel platform with any acceptable degree of quality.

But where Gates got it, WordPerfect was clueless. They chose instead to place their hopes in their incredible installed base, giving up on Windows and then ignoring it until it was almost too late. Consider my personal experience at WordPerfect to see a "perfect" (pardon the pun) example when they invested millions and millions of dollars in the development of WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS.

Our company had a contract working for WordPerfect that placed our offices in the halls of their buildings so I saw up close the general attitude toward Microsoft and Gates. It was one of haughty mocking that convinced me they did not know what they were dealing with. As a company, they were squarely in the middle of their preparation for the launch of the WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS and excitement was running high.

Furthermore, our company had produced for our clients software that ran under Windows, creating opportunities for barbs about the processor and memory requirements of the system it required. Not only was there a certain haughtiness, they apparently felt their position in the marketplace, despite competition from Microsoft, granted them some form of immunity to what eventually happened. Wanting to tap into their existing customer base, they created a version of their software that did not require Windows. Never mind that they had to re-create themselves the functionality that comes with GUI environments such as Windows and MacOS.

Their notion was that many people would stick with WordPerfect rather than upgrade their machines to run Windows. Unfortunately for them, their software also required that customers upgrade their machines before the WordPerfect software would run. Given this requirement, customers preferred to follow the wave to Windows 3.x and gain the advantages of WYSIWYG word processing in the switch.

Rather than waiting for the belated WordPerfect for Windows, however, many customers chose to switch to Word for Windows. Microsoft had added macros to support standard key stroke sequences that would make WordPerfect users feel at home. In fact, in a brilliant marketing coup Microsoft commissioned an independent, "blind" test of users of WordPerfect for DOS. It seems these users overwhelmingly preferred Word for Windows over WordPerfect for Windows.

Finally, WordPerfect further diffused itself in an effort to put its word processor under OS/2. With encouragement from IBM they combined forces with an anti-Windows faction also consisting of outfits such as Lotus, Borland, and Software Publishing Corporation, companies that all decided to skip Windows and develop directly for Presentation Manager. Furthermore, WordPerfect and Lotus announced an arrangement to tie Lotus' 1-2-3/G OS/2 version to WordPerfect's PM-based word processor. (Soft-Letter, November 27, 1989, v7, n11.)

Microsoft tried to put on a smiling face with all of this. They showed public harmony with IBM and tried to further differentiate between Windows and OS/2, explaining how Windows would not do many wonderful things that would be reserved for OS/2. This brought comments that Microsoft was being pressured by IBM to deliberately limit Windows. In a joint announcement at COMDEX in 1989, however, IBM and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said Windows had "not been capped." This gave further cause to Jim Manzi of Lotus in his disparagement of Windows. He then spoke of how Windows had been "neutered."

Where does this place WordPerfect on the "heroes to villains" scale? Unfortunately for them, they put their trust in the hapless IBM and in other companies of the computer industry. Had they done only this, things would not have been so bad. But they also chose to base their strategic planning on a myopic view of installed base rather than on what users would be able to do with their computers given a graphical user interface. They also refused to consider how fast processor speed and memory size would improve and open up incredible power to computer users. The effects of their views on their employees (many now former employees) are now well known.

So, what's the call? Heroes or villains? They have been purchased first by Novell and then by Corel. Given their moves through these troubled times, in no way can we place their management into the hero category.

Conclusion

While some might say this is old news, I am not inclined to disregard the lessons so lightly. As long as the computer industry continues to innovate and grow, there will be ample opportunity for companies to define themselves as heroes or villains in this exciting marketplace.

It should be clear that heroes are able to discern the fine line between success and failure when considering the choice between innovation and the legacy of the past as defined by installed base. Those who wish to succeed will not make critical planning decisions by only considering where they are today and how they have arrived there. It is critical to differentiate between abandoning loyal users and moving product lines into the future. A company cannot drive into the future looking solely into the rearview mirror. They have to imagine what can be and not just reflect on what has been.

Furthermore, we see once again that success in the computer marketplace is determined by open architectures rather than proprietary approaches. As powerful as IBM has been and remains today, they are not able to exert control over something as diverse and dynamic as is the computer marketplace.

Intellectually speaking, it would have been perhaps interesting to see IBM succeed in their efforts. Given the way they wanted to control things and encourage others to combine forces against Microsoft, I don't see how government antitrust action could have been avoided. Attacks against Microsoft today are nothing compared to what would have come about against IBM, the largest computer company in the world, had they succeeded. My view is that Microsoft's ability to succeed in the face of such adversity is a testimony to their strength as a company.

With this we are nevertheless not yet ready to place Gates and his associates into either the hero or villain category. It should be obvious to even the casual reader perusing these events that there has been much more going on than either his brilliance on the one hand or his stealth and cunning on the other. There is no way we can give him credit for IBM's ill-fated drive to re-exert its control over a market that refused to be controlled or for WordPerfect's unbelievable shortsightedness. We hold our judgment until Part III. Tune in again next month. Same time, same station.

Michael Bush is Associate Professor of French and Instructional Science at Brigham Young University. He is also a partner in Alpine Media of Orem, Utah, a company specializing in multimedia development for education, assessment, and foreign language training. In 1992 he retired from the Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel at the US Air Force Academy, where he was principally involved in the design and implementation of the largest interactive videodisc language learning center of its kind on any college campus in the world. Bush may be reached at Department of French and Italian, 4013 JKHB Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602, 801/378-4515, fax 801/378-4649, e-mail: [email protected]. Or, contact Bush at Alpine Media, Suite G-1, 560 South State Street, Orem UT 84058, 801/226-4283, fax 801/223-9069.

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