World War 3.0 : Microsoft and its enemies / Ken Auletta.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Auletta, Ken.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Trials, litigation, etc.

United States.

Microsoft Corporation--Trials, litigation, etc.

Microsoft Corporation.

Antitrust law--United States.

Antitrust law.

Computer software industry--Law and legislation.

Computer software industry.

Computer software industry--Law and legislation--United States.

Monopolies--United States.

Monopolies.

Physical Description:

xxv, 436 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

World War three point zero

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [2001]

Summary:

The Internet Revolution, like all great industrial changes, has made the world's elephantine media companies tremble that their competitors -- whether small and nimble mice or fellow elephants -- will get to new terrain first and seize its commanding heights. In a climate in which fear and insecurity are considered healthy emotions, corporate violence becomes commonplace. In the blink of an eye -- or the time it has taken slogans such as "The Internet changes everything" to go from hyperbole to banality -- "creative destruction" has wracked the global economy on an epic scale.

No one has been more powerful or felt more fear or reacted more violently than Bill Gates and Microsoft. Afraid that any number of competitors might outflank it -- whether Netscape or Sony or AOL Time Warner or Sun or AT&T or Linuxbased companies that champion the open-source movement or some college student hacking his dorm room -- Microsoft has waged holy war on all foes, leveraging its imposing strengths.

In World War 3.0, Ken Auletta chronicles this fierce conflict from the vantage of its most important theater of operations: the devastating second front opened up against Bill Gates's empire by the United States government. The book's narrative spine is United States v. Microsoft, the government's massive civil suit against Microsoft for allegedly stifling competition and innovation on a broad scale. With his superb writerly gifts and extraordinary access to all the principal parties, Ken Auletta crafts this landmark confrontation into a tight, character- and incident-filled courtroom drama featuring the best legal minds of our time, including David Boies and Judge Richard Posner. And with the wisdom gleaned from covering the converging media, software, and communications industries for The New Yorker for the better part of a decade, Auletta uses this pivotal battle to shape a magisterial reckoning with the larger war and the agendas, personalities, and prospects of its many combatants.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Prosecutors 3

Chapter 2 Hard Core 28

Chapter 3 The First Pitch 38

Chapter 4 Opening Salvos 53

Chapter 5 The Government's Story 77

Chapter 6 Microsoft's Hole Gets Deeper 108

Chapter 7 Spin 130

Chapter 8 The Real Bill Gates 140

Chapter 9 Children at Play 160

Chapter 10 Elephants and Mice 170

Chapter 11 Microsoft's Witnesses Speak 182

Chapter 12 Nerds in the Bunker 210

Chapter 13 Spring Break 228

Chapter 14 Exile 236

Chapter 15 The Trial's Final Innings 252

Chapter 16 The Trial Pauses, the Planet Doesn't 265

Chapter 17 Judge Jackson's "Facts" 284

Chapter 18 The Mediator 309

Chapter 19 Disconnect: Washington, D.C., vs. Redmond, Washington 317

Chapter 20 Davos, Again 333

Chapter 21 So Much Effort, So Little Result 340

Chapter 22 Remedy, and Appeal 369

Chapter 23 Microsoft Loses Even if It Wins 385.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [409]-414) and index.

ISBN:

0375503668

OCLC:

44883596