By Stephen Williams

WORLD WAR 3 MICROSOFT AND ITS ENEMIES

By Ken Auletta

?17.99 Profile

ISBN 1-86197-390-X

Microsoft’s lengthy legal battle with the US government in a civil suit over charges of breaching Anti-trust legislation is considered one of the most important legal disputes of the century. Ken Auletta’s book tells this complex story, characterising the protagonists skillfully, explaining the technological implications and providing a neutral overview of the years of argument and counter argument which is still to be properly resolved.

What is clear is that the business of new technologies which have made multi-billion dollar fortunes for many of its players, not least Microsoft chief Bill Gates - generally described as the world’s richest man - has been, and is, a corporate struggle for dominance fought with unremitting determination. No prisoners were taken in the struggle for market share.

Microsoft’s pre-eminent position in this conflict, supplying over 90% of all personal computer software, seemed unassailable.

Corporate rivals, large and small, attempting to gain or keep a foothold in the emerging new economy would tremble at the thought of tangling with Microsoft.

In 1998, Microsoft realised profits of some $4.5bn (around 40% of operating revenue - and about twice as large as the world’s biggest company, General Motors). It took the might of the world’s sole super-power, the US government, to even put a brake on Microsoft’s exponential growth.

Citing an abuse of monopoly power, the US justice department drew up charges and took the corporation to court. They specifically cited that Microsoft used its control over software operating systems to impose contractual obligations on computer manufacturers, as well as internet service and content providers, hindering their ability to do business with any Microsoft competitor.

Not so, claimed Microsoft, our motives were simply for the benefit of consumers.

Gates surly and evasive

In essence, the case rested on the credibility of the witnesses called by each side. Reams of documents were presented in evidence, particularly internal Microsoft e-mails and, on the face of it, these communications seemed to directly contradict what Microsoft witnesses were testifying.

The author believes that no evidence seemed less credible than Bill Gate’s own videotaped deposition where he appeared in turn to be surly, obstructive and evasive. Other observers thought that Microsoft executive, Jim Allchin, was responsible for the most damaging revelations when the Department of Justice unearthed an e-mail he sent to his boss, Paul Maritz, which advocated Microsoft ?leveraging’ its Window’s market share advantage to crush competition.

Flawed legal strategy

Ken Auletta takes the view that Microsoft’s legal strategy was flawed from the outset. He contends that Microsoft would have made a much better case in admitting that it was concerned with market-share, that such considerations are, after all, a perfectly justifiable business consideration - and they were acting as any company would. Instead, the idealistic argument they presented, that they were acting solely for the benefit of consumers, was simply unbelievable and contrary to much of the evidence presented.

Microsoft’s appeal against last year’s judgement began in Washington late last February. They are claiming that the trial judge, Thomas Penfold Jackson - who has ordered that Microsoft be split into various companies to dilute its monopoly status - was biased against the company.

Judge Penfold gave the author 10 hours of interview time, and explains in this book just why he came to his judgment last June.

Africa - Arts and Cultures

Edited by John Mack

?16.99 British Museum Press

ISBN 0-7141-2548-8

In early March, The British Museum inaugurated the African Galleries which exhibit some 600 African works of art. These new galleries represent just 3% of the British Museum’s total collection, with the world renowned museum keeping around 200,000 African artifacts.

This huge collection has, for the last 30years, been kept (although not necessarily displayed) by London’s Museum of Mankind. Many artefacts have not been on public display for many years, although some featured in the seminal Africa’95 festival which saw a great array of African antiquities displayed at the Royal Academy.

Contemporary works are also alongside the antiquities in the galleries, and three screens play continuous video loops with themes as diverse as west African masquerades and north African textile manufacturing.

The range of exhibits also vary wide, not simply concentrating on recognised masterworks. In one area of the exhibition are a tower of ceramic cooking vessels, in another a freestanding wall-display of throwing knives.

Furniture, masks, metal castings, headrests, a Kenyan national football shirt, fetish shrines, wall hangings, drums, cloth, axes, woodcut prints, charms and jewellery - all are included, and more, in three modest sized rooms.

It seems surprising that Africa has not been afforded dedicated galleries at the British Museum before now. As a preface note in the book by Graham Greene, Chairman of the Museums’ Trustees, points out - all but one Department in the British Museum contain material relating to the continent - the exception being the Department of Japanese Antiquities.

Dedicated to Henry Moore

This book was published to mark the opening of the galleries, whose full title is the Sainsbury African Galleries after their sponsors, The Sainsbury Trust, and curiously they are dedicated to the British artist Henry Moore. Admission is free.

Edited by John Mack, Senior Keeper at the British Museum, the book refers to works which are not actually on display - but presumably, as the Sainsbury African Galleries are to be a permanent feature at the British Museum, works which will from time to time replace those currently exhibited.

The book has four chapters, two of which are written by John Mack covering Central, and East and Southern Africa. The other two chapters deal with the Maghreb and Sahara, and West Africa. Interspersed within these four chapters are essays of various lengths contributed by experts working in academic establishments and Museums throughout Africa and elsewhere. The book also carries colour photographs, maps and photographs from the field.

John Mack’s text is revealing in parts, yet muted in others. He makes an interesting point regarding the shift in academic use of classifications, accepting that the concept of ?African’ is in fact broader than merely geographic limitations.

One obvious example of this is in the contribution by the African diaspora to Africa’s cultural heritage. To illustrate this, he draws attention to a wooden drum in the Asante style. He says, ?it is like one you might see being played today in any Asante village in modern day Ghana.? But in fact it was ?acquired’ in 1730 by Sir Hans Sloane - whose collection formed such an important basis of the British Museums collection - not from West Africa, but from Virginia in the USA. The drum had been made in America by an African slave.

However, he is silent on the one great question over collections such as the British Museums’. It is a question of legitimacy. There’s a strong, many would say irrefutable argument that as many of the articles in these collections were acquired in a less than legitimate fashion - a sideline of European colonialism in general - that restoring these artifacts to their rightful owners or custodians is a moral imperative.

Certainly, the British Museum has been the focus of intense lobbying by the Greek government for the return of the Elgin Marbles. Since the untimely death last year of the British MP Bernie Grant, a champion of the return of looted works of art, this issue has been on the backburner of public debate for some time. But inevitably, sooner or later, the British Museum will be required to address this issue, and John Mack might have added his voice.

Order books through The Middle East Books Dept., IC Publications, 7 Coldbath Square, London EC1R 4LQ, UK. Telephone: +44 (0)207 713 7711 Fax: +44 (0)207 713 7898. Orders should include the nine-digit ISBN, book title, price and postage for each book — UK ?3, Europe (airmail) ?5, Rest of World (airmail) ?10. Payment must accompany each order, by sterling cheque drawn on a UK bank and made payable to IC Publications Ltd or by credit card giving number and expiry date, together with the cardholder’s name, address and telephone or facsimile number.

Crypto

Secrecy and Privacy in the Code War

Edited by Steven Levy

?18.99 The Penguin Press

ISBN 0-71-399346-4


Living in the age of information technology, communication is easier and faster than ever before. But it is also now fraught with two major issues: those of security and privacy. Privacy has become a trade off, and a commodity. Every time you use your credit card, the internet or your mobile phone, the only safeguard you have against everyone else knowing your business is cryptography - the making of secret cyphers.

Cryptography, the encoding of secret information, is the solution. But to whom does it belong? Who has the power to use it?

If powerful government agencies have their way, it will not be the general public. For the last two decades they have been determined to keep cryptography under their control - citing that the common good in the war against organised crime and terrorism makes it essential that they retain the power to intercept private communications. Opposing this view are a growing band of techno-anarchists determined to take on Big Brother in a fight for the right to privacy.

Crypto poses important political questions for this debate. Will the information age enhance our freedoms or snatch them away? Will secret codes empower crooks and fanatics, or will the lack of them cripple vital functions like our financial systems. Most important, who do we trust: the government intelligence agencies who still demand access to our private transactions or their rebel enemies?

Steven Levy is a senior editor at Newsweek magazine, specialising in cutting-edge science and new technology issues.

Rebel Code: Linux and the Open-Source Revolution

By Glyn Moody

?12.99 Penguin Press

ISBN 0-713-99520-3


In 1991, a 21year old Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, bought a PC, installed it in his bedroom and began experimenting with creating the ?kernel’ of a new operating system code. He soon decided that in order to realise the full potential of this new software, which he first called Freax but was to later rename Linux, he would enlist the co-operation of like-minded enthusiasts by posting his work for free downloading on-line via the internet.

Thousands of eager contributors world-wide helped modify the code, happy to agree to one fundamental condition, a General Public Licence (GPL), that imposes a duty to make freely available to others the improvements they make. This condition, which ironically draws on copyright legislation to enforce, was first devised by the free-software pioneer Richard Stallman.

GPL is also central to the growth of the internet. The original software programme that enables trillions of pieces of data to be accurately delivered to its intended destination by the internet was written nearly 20 years ago and given away.

Similarly, most e-mail is delivered thanks to a free-software programme, as is the programme that runs nearly two-thirds of the web’s 25m public sites. Free software, sometimes termed ?open source’, has an evolutionary dynamic that poses real competition to traditional commercial software developers.

Anti-trust charges

When Microsoft was hauled before the courts in the US to answer anti-trust charges (essentially, that the Microsoft was exercising a monopoly with its ubiquitous Windows operating system installed on the vast majority of the world’s PCs), and asked to name what competition it in fact faced, it could only point to two rivals.

One was Apple - but in fact Apple is commercially dependent on Microsoft providing a version of its Office software that can run on its operating system. The other was Linux which, with the growing support of major corporations such as IBM, Dell and Intel, is poised to challenge Microsoft’s hegemony. That challenge is most likely to be felt for operating systems that run server computers for web-pages and e-mail applications, and corporate super-computing.

Indeed, IBM announced late last year that it would invest some $1bn in Linux-related activities this year, and has already begun installing a Linux super-computer at Shell’s research centre in the Netherlands to analyse the oil company’s geophysical data. IBM has also sold two Linux supercomputers to the US National Centre for Supercomputing Applications, one of which will be the fourth-fastest supercomputer in the world when it becomes operational later this year.

Rebel Code: Linux and the Open-Source Revolution

By Glyn Moody

?12.99 Penguin Press

ISBN 0-713-99520-3

In 1991, a 21year old Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, bought a PC, installed it in his bedroom and began experimenting with creating the ?kernel’ of a new operating system code. He soon decided that in order to realise the full potential of this new software, which he first called Freax but was to later rename Linux, he would enlist the co-operation of like-minded enthusiasts by posting his work for free downloading on-line via the internet.

Thousands of eager contributors world-wide helped modify the code, happy to agree to one fundamental condition, a General Public Licence (GPL), that imposes a duty to make freely available to others the improvements they make. This condition, which ironically draws on copyright legislation to enforce, was first devised by the free-software pioneer Richard Stallman.

GPL is also central to the growth of the internet. The original software programme that enables trillions of pieces of data to be accurately delivered to its intended destination by the internet was written nearly 20 years ago and given away.

Similarly, most e-mail is delivered thanks to a free-software programme, as is the programme that runs nearly two-thirds of the web’s 25m public sites. Free software, sometimes termed ?open source’, has an evolutionary dynamic that poses real competition to traditional commercial software developers.

Anti-trust charges

When Microsoft was hauled before the courts in the US to answer anti-trust charges (essentially, that the Microsoft was exercising a monopoly with its ubiquitous Windows operating system installed on the vast majority of the world’s PCs), and asked to name what competition it in fact faced, it could only point to two rivals.

One was Apple - but in fact Apple is commercially dependent on Microsoft providing a version of its Office software that can run on its operating system. The other was Linux which, with the growing support of major corporations such as IBM, Dell and Intel, is poised to challenge Microsoft’s hegemony. That challenge is most likely to be felt for operating systems that run server computers for web-pages and e-mail applications, and corporate super-computing.

Indeed, IBM announced late last year that it would invest some $1bn in Linux-related activities this year, and has already begun installing a Linux super-computer at Shell’s research centre in the Netherlands to analyse the oil company’s geophysical data. IBM has also sold two Linux supercomputers to the US National Centre for Supercomputing Applications, one of which will be the fourth-fastest supercomputer in the world when it becomes operational later this year.

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