ACT Chairman on MS Compliance Hearing – Day 2

On the European Commission’s Microsoft Hearings (30-31 March 2006)

BY MIKE SAX, PRESIDENT OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY SAX.NET and FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF ASSOCIATION FOR COMPETITIVE TECHNOLOGY

1. As a software engineer with 12 years of experience in interoperability, I know that search for perfect documentation is a search for the Holy Grail. It is equally true that perfect documentation has never been necessary to create interoperable software.

2. It is not possible to produce a document that will allow developers unfamiliar with Windows to create interoperable servers in a matter of days. It has taken thousands of developers many years to develop the Windows server software; it is extremely complex technology. It is only common sense that a competitor wishing to implement these protocols would hire programmers familiar with Windows and must invest the appropriate amount of time and effort to create their product. If there are any ambiguities in the documentation, the programmers not only have access to publicly available resources but also Microsoft’s own source code and unlimited support from its engineers.

2. With access to this documentation, the source code and unlimited support from Microsoft, there is nothing stopping competitors like IBM, Sun and RedHat from developing interoperable software. Every day spent in a courtroom is a day not spent developing interoperable systems.

Note: Mike Sax has 12 years experience implementing interactivity protocols and developing software that creates interoperability solutions between Windows, UNIX, Linux and other systems.