Associated Press
REDMOND — Love it or hate it, Microsoft’s Windows is "the most important tool that’s ever been created," says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
"It’s a tool for communications, for creativity — it’s the basis for the entire software industry," Gates said in an interview on the eve of his company’s biggest consumer product launch since 1995.
Today, Microsoft formally releases Windows XP, a major retooling of the operating system that runs the vast majority of personal computers.
To some — including the U.S. Justice Department — Windows’ massive reach creates a quandary. As Microsoft keeps improving and expanding its dominant product, consumers may get a better deal, but competitors face the threat of being squashed.
And as Microsoft’s software and Internet services become more pervasive, critics say so does the potential for breaches in information security.
To Gates, Windows XP is simply about saving computer users time and money. "It’s a value for consumers," Gates said. "Why are there headlights in cars? Why don’t they make you go and buy those things separately?"
It’s also about money: Desktop operating systems accounted for more than $8 billion of the $25.3 billion in revenue Microsoft reported for fiscal year 2001.
Friends and foes agree that Windows XP is the souped-up sedan of the desktop operating system world. It offers new features for listening to music, playing videos and for editing and organizing digital photographs. A new feature called Windows Messenger lets users communicate instantly with others using text, voice and video.
"If you look at the value of the stuff that’s in Windows XP, compared to the stand-alone packages you’d have to buy for the equivalent, that’s many hundreds of dollars," Gates said.
When competitors such as America Online, Kodak or Netscape complain that Microsoft’s built-in products threaten to squeeze them out of the market, Gates doesn’t flinch.
They are welcome, he says, to develop more alluring products.
"Windows has always moved forward by including the popular things that you used to have to buy separately," he said.
Gates’ no-holds-barred vision for Microsoft’s growth has built the company into a multibillion-dollar enterprise and made him the richest man in the world.
Gates claims his company’s products have driven the technology revolution — not handicapped it, as some critics contend. He says that’s part of why Microsoft has refused to curtail its aggressive efforts to keep adding more features to Windows despite the legal threat from the federal government and attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia who sued Microsoft for antitrust violations.
"The PC ecosystem is very rich, and we have a huge responsibility to that ecosystem," Gates said. "We work extremely hard, and we put out a new version of Windows every couple of years as best we can, and no legal thing has prevented us from doing that, and I don’t expect that it will."
Although a federal judge ruled the company guilty of monopolistic practices and penalty hearings open next month, Microsoft has refused to put Windows XP on the bargaining table.
In fact, Microsoft has only expanded its reach. A new feature in XP called Passport seeks to become the standard online authentication system, storing Web site passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information required to complete Internet transactions.
Critics say that by requiring Passport sign-up in order to use such features as Windows Messenger, Microsoft is coercing people into giving the company personal information. Groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center have complained to the Federal Trade Commission.
Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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