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A L S O_ T O D A Y
T A B L E__T A L K What's the dream operating system for cruising the Internet? It's another Mac vs. Windows go-round in the 21st area of Table Talk
____________________ Technology news from
R E C E N T L Y Let's Get This Straight: Gathering of the Linux tribes Molotovs and mailing lists Terrors of the Amazon In defense of day traders
Crips, Bloods in the Web 'hood - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
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FORTRESS MICROSOFT | PAGE 1, 2
Every modern multinational corporation tries to create a focused, coherent, self-supporting vision. A shared sense of values, an ability to see things through the same intellectual lens, is an essential ingredient in the cement that holds together any corporate culture. But there's a risk involved: If a company has proven a shade too successful in shaping the business environment to its needs, its mind-set can grow rigid -- and unconsciously, employees will resist adapting to reality and try instead to bend it to match their own vision. That, many reporters say, is what Microsoft seems to be trying to do. "They're used to controlling the presentation," says the reporter for the tech-savvy daily. Indeed, Microsoft is widely regarded as having a fine-tuned media relations machine, an army of hundreds of PR representatives commanded from its chief outside firm, Waggener Edstrom. For years, as a September 1998 Brill's Content article chronicled, Microsoft has tracked its press coverage with spreadsheet precision and wooed select tech reporters for key media outlets via command audiences with Bill. Only with the unfolding of the antitrust trial has Microsoft seemed to lose its footing. Washington is a big stage that Microsoft can't easily dominate. Yet it is so "used to controlling the presentation" that it doesn't seem to know how to deal with a looser environment that it can't dictate to. "They all have the same response. They're reading from a script. They can't go off script," says the same reporter. "In general, every single person who deals with this is reading from exactly the same script. And in my experience that leads all the way up to the chairman -- that leads all the way up to Bill Gates." At the antitrust trial, the company's internal story is so far from what others are seeing that it is enraging members of the media who would rather be friendly, straining people's credibility and ultimately harming its own interests. "In a kind of formulaic fashion, the point guy for Microsoft, Mark Murray, comes out, and no matter what happens, he almost invariably will comment that this has been a great day for Microsoft," Young says. "It's worn so thin. One reporter got so incredulous, that -- with a certain amount of risk, because he was saying it in front of a bunch of people -- this person said, 'Mark, that's a bunch of bullshit.'" Young won't name the culprit, but in an entertaining ongoing diary of the trial, Fortune magazine's Joseph Nocera said MSNBC's Brock Meeks used just that phrase one day on the steps of the courthouse where the trial is taking place. Microsoft isn't just annoying outsiders; it's driving its own relatives crazy, too. Microsoft's unwillingness to bend its position or give in on any point has begun to erode some reporters' trust. Where Microsoft never admits a misstep, David Boies, the government's lead lawyer, is perfectly willing to concede a well-won point. "Boies the other week said, 'Things have gone well with Microsoft,'" Young says. "By even infrequently conceding what some reporters were thinking, he seemed to be a more credible spinmeister." Most journalists understand that a little spin is inevitable. But Microsoft has gone far beyond the usual level of promoting its own perspective. "I respect the fact that when you're part of any organization you have to have a public line and you have to stick to the public line no matter who you are," a reporter says. "What's incredibly frustrating for everybody covering this is that when these guys go on background they still bullshit you. I've had one of Microsoft's top legal people tell me a bald-faced lie -- a bald-faced legal lie. Not like something he would not have known or understood; it was flat-out bullshit. I said, 'Do you want to go off the record here?' He said, 'I wouldn't tell you anything different.' It was insane, and I was able to get another lawyer to say that this guy is full of it in print." Microsoft's Shaw says he's appalled that anyone would accuse Microsoft executives of lying. "I take extreme exception with that," he says. "I would like to know specifically a single instance where someone said they were lied to. If anyone is lying, it's the government," he says. "We take very seriously our credibility and the credibility of the company. If anything, I wonder if some journalists may feel that's true from the government's perspective as well," Shaw says. Shaw also disputes the notion that dissatisfaction with the way Microsoft communicates about the antitrust case runs through almost the entire Washington press corps. "Seasoned reporters who are accustomed to covering a lot of national stories ... see what the government is doing and what Microsoft is doing as nothing out of the ordinary," he says. An ill-trained and inexperienced press corps -- including "a lot of reporters for whom this is their first big national story" -- might be part of the problem, Shaw says: "Technology is not an old industry. For some reporters in the technology field, this is the first trial or the first policy story they've written about. The fact that both sides are trying to tell their story probably seems overwhelming at times." There is no listening in such comments -- no sense that Microsoft might need to learn, or adapt, or alter the way it deals with the world. In truth, of the many reporters I spoke to, those who are most annoyed with Microsoft seem to be the ones with a lot of experience, not a little. And they say the situation at the antitrust trial is emblematic of the way Microsoft operates. "Microsoft's entire modus operandi, its history of dealing with everybody, is to never concede anything, no matter how small. You keep fighting until the other guy either runs out of money or gets tired and goes away. And that is clearly what they are doing here," one experienced reporter says. One of the publications I write for as a trade journalist is a glossy magazine called Reputation Management, which covers the business of public relations. It's a subject that few journalists take the trouble to learn -- perhaps out of discomfort at examining the workings of their own business too closely. One principle in this field is that a company that can't say "Oops" is a company headed for trouble. Reputation Management's editor, Paul Holmes, says that may be what's happening to Microsoft. "When you cut off feedback, when you become so sure that you're right that you stop listening to anybody who might think that you're wrong, you become as a corporation kind of self-absorbed and self-referential," Holmes says. "The result is that you become unresponsive. Your culture becomes calcified. It's a very dangerous attitude for a corporation to adopt." Indeed, the threat to Microsoft from within is far more dangerous than anything from outside of the organization, he says: "There is an institutional arrogance at Microsoft now that is infinitely more dangerous than anything the Justice Department can throw at them." For many reporters, what's really scary is that Microsoft executives don't seem to be shooting a line. "Over the past few weeks I've come to believe that the Microsoft team isn't just cynically spinning the press when it explains away the Gates deposition. Their efforts are more genuine than that, more heartfelt. I think the Microsoft people truly are seeing something that is fundamentally at odds with what the rest of us see," Nocera said in his Fortune column. What these reporters are sensing is the cumulative pressure placed by
Microsoft's self-certainty, its determination to win and its increasing
isolation on its ability to project a credible media image. It is not a
good sign when executives at America's largest and most important software
company begin to act like monotone-voiced cultists. Fanaticism and business
can make a potent combination, and few countries cultivate career obsession
more than the United States. Yet there is a point beyond which commitment
becomes catastrophe -- and relentless adhesion to a corporate culture
leaves no room for the glimmering light of reality to seep in. Tony Seideman has explored
the inner workings of many industries for more than 60 different
publications, from Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety to Gourmet
Retailer, Workboat and Warehousing Management. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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