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---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANATOLE KALETSKY: Snakeoil, software and Gates ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (September 9, 1997 7:51 p.m. EDT) -- Two weeks ago I devoted this column to a light-hearted diatribe against Bill Gates, the world's most successful salesman, and the mayhem caused by his flagship computer software, Windows 95. Although I knew from personal experience that many proficient computer users were as irritated as I was about the unreliability of Microsoft's products, I was surprised by my readers' response. In my 21 years as a journalist, I had never written an article that generated more letters -- and the response was unanimous. Among the dozens of letters, there was not one from a satisfied user of Windows or other Microsoft products. Of course, a deskful of letters is hardly a reliable gauge of public opinion, but the vehemence of this response suggests that this is an issue worth pursuing, if only because of the pivotal role of the computer industry in the global economic expansion and the bull market in shares around the world. In the last article, I considered the first question that strikes anyone who tries to use a Windows personal computer: Why are computers so unreliable and difficult to use? The short answer seemed to be that the computer industry is dominated by two companies: Gates' Microsoft and Intel, which manufactures the microprocessors at the heart of every PC. By constantly changing specifications and adding technical gimmicks which use up ever more of the PC's memory and processing power, these companies keep up the pressure on their customers to invest in new hardware and software. This constant "upgrading," in turn, makes existing systems appear obsolete. Anyone who has tried to get a spare part or hardware driver for a four-year-old computer will know what I mean. 'We're running a business here, not a museum," is often the gist of the manufacturer's reply. Amazingly, computer users meekly bow to this kind of insolence. Imagine how they would react if Ford or General Motors announced that spare parts would no longer be available for "obsolete" K-registration cars. The constant churning of computer features and technology is in the interests of the dominant manufacturers for one all-important reason. It prevents technical standards from stabilising, which would lead to dramatic reductions in prices. As I mentioned two weeks ago, this approach is remarkably similar to the strategy adopted by American car manufacturers in the 1960s, when consumers were expected to replace their cars each year to benefit from more powerful engines, even though most of them never drove faster than 70 miles an hour. Unfortunately technological churning also prevents improvements in reliability and quality. Would you feel safe in an aircraft if you knew that Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney were reinventing the jet engine every six months? Technological churning also prevents the establishment of common standards which would make equipment compatible and allow computers to work seamlessly together, in the way that is taken for granted when we plug in a new television set, CD player or telephone. In sum, Microsoft and Intel, like General Motors and Ford in the 1960s, have completely skewed the rules of engagement in the computer industry: instead of competing on price, reliability and quality, they have overwhelmed potential competitors with constantly changing gimmicks and claims about illusory definitions of "speed" and "power." The main reason, I think, is that most people who pay for computers -- be they company directors, parents or head teachers -- know nothing about information technology but think it is frightfully important. They believe that computers hold the key to their company's or their school's or their children's future. So nothing but the best will do. Parents who would not dream of buying their child a $750 bicycle when a second-hand bike will do, feel proud of spending $3,000 instead of $1,500 on the latest 200 Mhz Pentium Plus with MMX technology. Heads who are sacking teachers, closing libraries and abandoning school plays for lack of funds think nothing of spending thousands on multimedia Internet clients. Even finance directors who boast of cutting wages, reducing pensions and abolishing company cars lie down like lambs when the IT department tells them that the company needs to be "future-proofed" by buying workstations that can download animations from Japan, play three-dimensional computer games and show five channels of video all at the same time. How can this strange behavior be explained? It seems apposite to draw another comparison: with the American healthcare business before employers started taking serious steps to control their medical costs. The people who buy computers today are driven by the same combination of ignorance, embarrassment, hope and foreboding that turned so many Americans into hypochondriacs. Under these cirumstances, market forces can fail to perform their normal function of bringing down prices and stabilising standards, as they failed in American healthcare for many years. When people are driven by irrational hopes and fears, they are natural suckers for panaceas. Bill Gates is merely the latest and most successful in the long history of American snakeoil salesmen. Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Times of London <http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/voices/090997/voices11_13787_noframes.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [log in to unmask]