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THE MONOPOLY & THE VIRUS - After World War II, when Americans began to discover just how deeply involved Standard Oil, Dupont, General Electric, Ford and General Motors had been in the Third Reich, anger and disappointment focused briefly on General Motors as an obvious target for antitrust action. That move failed, when President Eisenhower put Charlie Wilson, formerly head of General Motors, into his cabinet as Secretary of Defense. There has never been any disclosure as to what it cost General Motors to "fix" this little problem.
Not long after Wilson's nomination and confirmation ("what's good for General Motors..."), an article appeared on the Op-Ed page of the Milwaukee Journal, explaining why a breakup of General Motors was a good idea. The author pointed out that just a few errors in judgment by a few heads of General Motors could have devastating effects, because the company commanded approximately fifty-four percent of the auto market. When any single company controls that much of the market, there are dire consequences to follow.
And that analyst was correct. Some years later, General Motors was at the battlements, insisting that it would not produce small cars even though consumers were clamoring for them. When General Motors took the hit for its mistakes, the U.S. economy took its lumps. The General Motors stockholders took their lumps. The U.A.W. workers at General Motors plants took their lumps. And the executives who made these decisions landed with their golden parachutes intact in the exurban palatial granduer of central Michigan.
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When the really big messes come down, the after effects are measured in millions - some say billions of dollars - of cost, to the U.S. economy and to U.S. businesses and government. Individuals lose records and intellectual capital - much of it forever, unrecoverable. And what is the cost to the ones who are responsible for making this such a vulnerable system? What are the real losses to the executives of Microsoft? And do not talk to me about paper losses on Wall Street - stock worth so much less than the day before. The poor fellows who see the vulnerability of these systems and bring them down, make 'em serve time, bad time - scumbag, villain.
The problem is that Windows controls too much of the market for its own good - and ours. When one system dominates as much as Windows does, the inherent weaknesses in the system stand there waiting and tempting anyone to bring about its downfall.
We enjoyed the great days of UCLA basketball, the dominating power of the Celtics, ah the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Green Bay Packers - but we enjoyed their fall, too. Maybe enjoyed their fall more than their domination of their sports.
There are always those standing by to "assist" the fall of the unchallengeable leader - as the virus writers do. For the life of me, I cannot understand what motivates people like this. But they are always there, always lurking in the shadows and awaiting their time, when they can bring about the downfall of yet another Sampson.
Operating systems do not have to be as glaring vulnerable as MS-DOS/Windows has been from the very start. With its predisposition (i.e., defaults set in such a way that it is more convenient to adopt them than to change them, even when one knows the risk) to "openness," this operating system stands naked to its own attackers.
What will happen as a result? Well, for one thing, the executives of Microsoft will have to find more new ways to contribute to the two dominant political parties, so that they will be able to continue business as usual. And we will just sit back, enjoy our PCs and await the next virus to wipe us out.
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