Poor Steve Jobs. Forced to kow-tow for Microsoft's cash and affections, and only to find himself on the wrong end of a loaded modem. According to Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Microsoft wants to kill Apple's multimedia technology, QuickTime, which is used to transfer sound and movies across the Internet. The Empire is pushing its own multimedia product (which conveniently can only be served from computers running MS software). An Apple deal to ship QuickTime on Compaq computers went down the digital disposal because Compaq feared retaliation from Redmond ruffians. Apple also alleges that Microserfs created intentional incompatibilities in Internet Explorer 4 and Windows 98 which break QuickTime but, funny, Microsoft's competing ActiveMovie still works fine with those products.

Of course, this is not new behavior for the software giant. In 1991, Microsoft employees launched an exceptionally dastardly plan to kill another competitor, DR DOS. DR DOS sales threatened MS-DOS, the early predecessor to Windows 95 that established Microsoft's operating system monopoly. DR DOS sales were on the rise--they doubled from $15 million in 1990 to $30 million in 1991. They soared again to $15 million in the first quarter of 1992 alone. Then disaster struck.

Microsoft was writing Windows 3.1, an important upgrade to the hugely popular Windows 3.0. In September 1991, a plan was hatched to use this upgrade to kill DR DOS. In an email discovered by the Dept. of Justice, the head of Windows development and Microsoft VP David Cole wrote, "aaronr had some pretty wild ideas after three or so beers--earleh has some too." The plan was to plant code into Windows which would "put competitors on a treadmill" and cause the system to "surely crash at some point shortly later." In order words, Windows would intentionally bomb if it detected DR DOS.

At this time, many computer vendors were considering switching from MS-DOS to the superior, cheaper DR DOS. Microsoft was especially concerned about IBM. Wooing these PC vendors was crucial to the future success of DR DOS, as was the good will of "early-adopters" (i.e., technically savvy users who drive new trends in the computer industry).

These vendors and early-adopters were also the same people who received a Christmas "beta" pre-release of Windows 3.1. They discovered--to their horror--that using DR DOS would cause vague system errors to pop up in Windows 3.1; they dumped DR DOS in droves. By the fourth quarter of 1992, sales of DR DOS had dropped from $15 million to only $1.4 million. The once mighty competitor became a has-been and was sold to Novell and later Caldera.

"What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect the problem is DR DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS, or decide not to take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office," wrote senior VP Brad Silverberg in a February 1992 email to David Cole. It worked. With the damage done and DR DOS destroyed, Microsoft disabled the killer code in the released version of Windows 3.1.

However, Microsoft didn't bury their tracks well enough. Software guru Andrew Schulman decided to investigate these mysterious bugs and released his findings in the September 1993 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. Based on the work of Geoff Chappell, he discovered the part of Windows that created these unusual error messages. It was encrypted by Microsoft engineers; encryption is a method used to hide information. Oddly, this was the only part of Windows that was encrypted. This code also contained numerous other unusual tricks to trip up any investigation of what it did.

Through rigorous persistence, Geoff Chappell, and in turn Andrew Schulman, were able to decode the code. Schulman wrote, "It appears to be a wholly arbitrary test, a gratuitous gatekeeper seemingly with no purpose other than to smoke out non-Microsoft versions of DOS, tagging them with an appropriately vague 'error' message."

The only non-encrypted part of this package were the letters "AARD"--a signature used by developer Aaron Reynolds to tag his code. Reynolds, whose email address is "aaronr", was the person who originally came up with the idea of how to torpedo DR DOS, according to the aforementioned email by David Cole.

When Schulman contacted Microsoft, a high-level manager claimed that they were agnostic regarding DR DOS. However, Schulman concluded, "As for 'agnostic,' this seems unlikely given the effort required to write this tricky code. Its presence in five otherwise-unrelated programs also suggests a fairly concerted effort..."

After the article was published, Brad Silverberg, who had helped hatch the plan, replied to the charges. "It has never been a practice of this company to deliberately create incompatibilities between Microsoft system software and the system software of other OS publishers. I am not aware of any instance where Microsoft intentionally created an incompatibility between Windows and DR DOS." Microsoft VP Brad Chase, who in the 1980's was in charge of DOS development, even went so far as to dismiss the whole incident as an "urban legend" on an NPR talk show which aired on January 16, 1998.

What do you want to be told today?

If this evidence seems damning, consider the ones that got away. Stefanie Reichel, a former Microsoft account manager in Germany, testified under oath that Microsoft intentionally deleted email to hide evidence from the Dept. of Justice. Destroying evidence to impede a federal investigation makes Bill Clinton's alleged offenses--which he may be impeached for--pale in comparison.

It is clear that Microsoft conspired to use deceit to undermine DR DOS and maintain its monopoly on the operating systems market. According to Apple, Microsoft is now attempting to use a similar tactic to undermine QuickTime. This comes just a few months after RealNetworks CEO Robert Glaser testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Microsoft was using another predatory technique to disable RealNetwork's product, RealAudio, the most popular audio player on the Internet.

According to this evidence, to undermine its competitors, Microsoft breaks their products. Not only is this bad for innovation; it also creates headaches and hassles for computer users in order to (in Microsoft's calculation) scare them away from any non-Microsoft products. Aren't you a bit miffed that some of the bugs that people run into have been purposely put there by Microsoft engineers? This has all the makings of a protection racket ("You use our product, your computer runs fine; you download QuickTime, bad things will happen.")

Microsoft must be held accountable for its contempt for users, free market competition, and basic antitrust laws. According to Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia, "Violation of the Sherman [Antitrust] Act is a felony, punishable by up to three years in prison..." In a just world, those employees at Microsoft who broke the law would serve jail time.

In this world, well, let's hope for the best.

Side note: The best coverage of this issue was in an August 27, 1998, Wall Street Journal article, which was republished by MSNBC. Ironically, Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC. MSNBC's reprint was originally located at the following Web address: http://www.msnbc.com/news/190860.asp

However, that Web page has mysteriously disappeared. Persistent searching of MSNBC turned up no traces. HotBot (http://www.hotbot.com) confirms that such a page once existed but has been deleted. Luckily, a MIT Web site made a copy of the article before it was axed. You can read it at http://cwren.www.media.mit.edu/~cwren/windoze95/190860.html

As a disclaimer, I used to work at Microsoft and had a very positive career experience. Hopefully, I haven't let that bias this article.