Ballmer: State want to Destroy Windows
NewsFactor | at | by Mike
In the deposition, Ballmer argued that sanctions sought by the nine remaining plaintiff states would force Microsoft to remove its Windows operating system (OS) from the marketplace altogether. "It guarantees that the only way to comply effectively is to remove the product from the market," Ballmer said. "If you can't ship Windows, the whole game's kind of over."
Consumer Justice?
But Peter Kastner, chief research officer at research firm Aberdeen Group, told NewsFactor that meddling by the state attorneys general could cause immeasurable damage to consumers if Microsoft is forced to dismember Windows.
"Obviously, they know nothing about how software is designed, written, tested and profitably marketed," Kastner said. "This is not some clean-sheet academic exercise in microeconomics but real-world messing with the business and leisure lives of a hundred million citizens." Kastner contended that an anti-Microsoft ruling would make it extremely inconvenient and expensive for consumers to buy, install and maintain all of the different "middleware" that the state attorneys general are saying must be removed from Windows.
"I think it would be a huge disruption to the economy and a royal pain for consumers, while costing them more in dollars and a lot more in lost productivity and leisure time," he said. "This is progress in the name of justice?"