Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A software superpower is declared a monopoly, free software rakes in billions and money makes the world go round: The year in tech.
Dec 15, 1999 | Forget the coming-out parties of years past. In 1999, the Net grew up and went to work -- and its long-standing promise to change the way we do business became an inescapable reality. While the year was thin on technological breakthroughs -- with mammoth influences like America Online, AT&T and Microsoft focused on politics (whether to compete or cooperate with each other) rather than innovation -- e-commerce took off. Online retailers selling everything from kitty litter and canned tuna to diamond rings, fine art and haute couture blanketed the Web, while a slew of dot-com companies forged a path toward pay-per-use software rentals, business-to-business auctions of surplus supplies and, of course, comparison-shopping services. No matter how many ideas Net companies came up with, there weren't enough to go around, leaving clusters of nearly identical businesses sprouting up like mushrooms after a rain. We've seen this competitive landscape before -- when hundreds of Internet service providers, or a dozen search engines, or a couple of browsers battled it out -- and we don't think we're going out on a limb when we say consolidation could be the watchword next year.
Of course, there was a little more to 1999 than shopping, although many noteworthy events did seem to revolve around money. Here's our take on all that came to pass in the final year of the millennium.
Microsoft is a monopolist
Could there have been any bigger story in the tech world in 1999 than Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's definitive declaration on Nov. 6 that Microsoft is a monopoly? Not likely, although Jackson's stronger-than-expected denunciation of Microsoft was considerably watered down just a few weeks later, when he appointed a noted foe of antitrust enforcement, Judge Richard Posner, as a mediator between Bill Gates and the Department of Justice. Even so, Jackson's 200-plus-page learned treatise on Microsoft, the software industry and the game of monopoly proved that the judge really was paying attention to the interminable hearings that have had Wall Street analysts and technology reporters gnashing their teeth for what now feels like a couple of decades. In devastating detail, Jackson set forth an analysis of Microsoft's competitive practices that could only have seemed like a very, very bad dream for Redmond, Wash., lawyers. Still, we're far from closure on this story. Will the two sides reach a settlement? Will Microsoft actually be broken up? Or, worst of all for the Lords of Windows, will the company be forced to give up its all important source code to the greedy scrutiny of the general public and a host of salivating competitors? Check our wrap-up for 2000 -- there's an outside chance we might know the answers to these questions by then.
Dot-com mania
We may be stating the obvious, but Internet mania this year reached ludicrous heights. Venture capitalists disbursed a boggling $9.67 billion to thousands of Internet start-ups in 1999, and the resultingly flush marketing budgets led to an absurd array of pricey TV ad campaigns -- $2 billion worth of indistinguishable ads, according to some estimates. By mid-year, you could not watch a sitcom, or even pick up a copy of the New Yorker, without being solicited to visit some site you'd never heard of. As the venture capital trickled down (or would that be up?), celebrities, including drag diva RuPaul, made out like bandits as, um, spokespersons for the identity-desperate dot-coms. Even technology journalists were invited to share the wealth -- through a deluge of unbidden PR gifts.
Other consequences: Every news magazine is dedicating half of its coverage to what has been dubbed Riches.com, and wannabe boy billionaires are flocking to Silicon Valley in droves. Worst of all for locals, the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area has skyrocketed while, some say, the quality of life has plummeted.
Get Salon in your mailbox!