Alas WebTV, We Hardly Knew Ye April 7, 1997 They tried it all. The Simply Interactive PC, the Net PC, Windows CE. Anything to become downwardly mobile into the consumer market. Bill Gates has been crowing that those darn PCs are just too hard to use. Microsoft has been consistently trying to formulate plans to solve a problem largely of its own creation; that the "too tough for Joe Sixpack" meme that allegedly forestalls further penetration of the home market by PCs.
If I hear someone say that "people can't program their VCRs, so how do I expect them to use a computer" one more time, I'm going to throw up. People can't program their VCRs because they don't care enough to learn. There just aren't many things on television good enough that the average guy would be willing to preempt the previously scheduled garbage with something they taped from last night.
More people aren't learning to use computers (or buying them for the home) because nothing compels them to do so. Besides that computers cost a lot, way more than a nice VCR, way more than a Nintendo 64, and way more than plenty of other things that offer an obvious benefit like keeping your kids out of your hair and out of trouble. Sure, computer experts know that you can buy a previous generation PC on the cheap and surf the net, balance your checkbook, play Quake and check your e-mail, all at the same time. But Intel and Microsoft spend millions explaining to the ignorant that you need MMX and you must have Office 97 or there's just no point in owning a computer. How can logical folks fight that?
WebTV is hardly the hottest thing since sliced bread, but it's a technological slam dunk in many ways. It's cheap ... dirt cheap really. It gives you e-mail and web browsing. Your grandmother can take it out of the box and set it up. Software upgrades are downloaded and installed automagically. It's black and looks as at home on your TV as your VCR does. It's manufactured by companies that consumers know and respect. Basically, it succeeds where lots of other companies have failed.
Microsoft just paid $425 million to acknowledge their own failure to move into the consumer market. This, of course, gives Microsoft yet another platform to plunder. Having already won the desktop war, Microsoft has opted to move on to greener pastures. They're working hard to take over every facet of the Internet business. Servers, clients, groupware, e-mail, authoring tools, consumer Internet service, and even content are on their hit list. Now they've got an instant beach head into the "internet appliance" category.
The question now is, how badly can they screw it up? Of course they'll probably come to dominate this area, just as they will most others, but that doesn't mean it will be best for consumers. They bought WebTV for its existing mindshare, and partnerships with powerful OEMs like Sony and Philips/Magnavox, who can shell out the dough for advertising.
What they probably don't want to keep is WebTV's browser (which is a minor miracle, given how well it renders web pages designed for computer monitors on low resolution TVs). Why would they when they can supply their own browser, Internet Explorer? They probably want to shove Windows CE onto the thing (grafting it onto the WebTV boxes will enable them to point at CE as a non-failure). And they'll probably send ISPs like Concentric that signed on early with WebTV packing, so that they can thrust MSN into more households.
So what's the point?
I think it amounts to another nail in the coffin of free competition in the computer industry, but that's true of most of Microsoft's competitive moves (that's the point, isn't it?). I don't blame them for acting like a monopolist, all companies do their best to compete in the markets that they enter, if they happen to dominate them, so much the better for the shareholders. It's up to society to decide how far to let any company go.
It's only a matter of time before Microsoft begins to spend lots of time, energy and cash seeking to do nothing other than preserve their monopoly position (they're beginning to do it already). As any good capitalist will tell you, this is bad for the economy. It's called "rent seeking", ask any economist about it.
Increasingly, the software industry is becoming a place where companies work hard in a market until Microsoft shows up, then they leave for greener pastures. How many new word processors, spreadsheets, C++ compilers or operating systems do you see coming out these days? Not too many. Why? Because those markets are largely sewn up.
Do we want to see that happen to a nascent market like consumer Internet platforms? Don't look now, but it's happening.
|
Return to my homepage. E-mail Rafe.
Site acknowledgements. Copyright© rafeco, 1997.