It's the difference, they say, between requiring everyone to learn English and posting pictorial road signs that everyone can understand regardless of what language they speak. Entrepreneurs are sprinting to come up with innovative products that will help them build new businesses. Microsoft's competitors want the government to stop the software giant from using its existing market strength to forge new standards in these emerging markets. Consumers will be best served, they argue, if many firms have a chance to invent new approaches and products, then the market picks the winners. Microsoft executives counter that they are simply trying to serve their customers in the best ways they know how.
Most consumers are happiest when the products they buy work well together, the company maintains.
If the government wins, it may have a hard time transforming its vision of competition into reality. And if Microsoft wins, it may follow International Business Machines Corp. in discovering that winning isn't everything. With Microsoft's hyper-aggressive business tactics detailed in painstaking detail, the company could find public image sullied for years, industry observers say. They don't want to undergo the pain of being dragged to court again.