Wall Street Journal: Windows XP: Is there life after icons?. Microsoft points out that people who buy Windows XP are free to set up their own shortcuts and icons on the screen to any programs they wish. In fact, “if you want to take your desktop and make it look just like Windows 2000, you can do that,” says Chris Jones, the Microsoft vice president overseeing Windows XP.
Not if you’re the actual customer — the computer manufacturer.
Microsoft is asserting its monopoly power yet again. It claims the absolute right to decide what appears on the computer screen the first time it boots up in someone’s home. So if the manufacturer, a vassal to the Microsoft king, wants to cut a deal with a company Microsoft wants to crush or simply put at a greater disadvantage, that’s not allowed.
The really galling part of this is that Microsoft has been defending itself in court against civil antitrust claims brought on behalf of end users. Well, says our favorite monopolist, end users aren’t our actual customers. The manufacturers are, and they’re the only ones with standing to sue. Of course, the manufactuers, which would like to stay in business, will never sue the company that controls their existence.
Back in the Reagan administration, when antitrust policy was essentially a mandate not to enforce the law, one of the Justice Department’s few antitrust moves was to ensure that the first screen in the airlines’ computer reservations systems wasn’t biased against competitors. Don’t look for anyone to draw a parallel. We’ve come to a time when antitrust law is basically not enforced, period. Not to mention common sense.