"Politics" Plenary Starts, Ends with Laughs

Serious standoff fills rest of session

By Jeffrey Bartlett

For the second consecutive UniForum Conference, the power plenary sessions began with a look at "The Politics of Open Computing." Again it was led by Mike Azzara, founding editor of the recently defunct Open Systems Today and currently director of market strategy for the CMP enterprise computing group, in the David Letterman role. Its aim, he said, was "to provide real insights but make you laugh." The plenary did both, but not at the same time.

This year the session was devoted to discussion of "Microsoft's Open Systems Strategy." First, however, Azzara handed out cans of Standard Spam 1170, which he said goes down easily because it is "compatible with everything." This got perhaps the biggest laugh of the hour. Then he delivered a monolog, capped by the Top Ten Reasons to Buy Microsoft Products. Number one was "On the Internet, nobody knows you're driving Windows NT."

Next, he introduced Bob Kruger, director of strategic relations and standards for Microsoft, who assumed the anticipated villain's role by coming out dressed as Darth Vader. He distributed bumper stickers that read "On the Internet, nobody knows you're driving Windows NT." So much for spontaneity.

Microsoft never comes unprepared to an "open systems" gathering, and Kruger soon launched an aggressive, though predictable, defense of his company's position on industry standards. "Windows interfaces are published, consistent, and readily available," he said. "This is what's important. It leads to a volume marketplace."

Azzara pointed out that critics say Microsoft has "perverted" some standards by changing them enough to make them proprietary. Kruger denied this and capped his time in the first guest chair by showing Windows and NT running on three different platforms, which he claimed demonstrated interoperability. For an audience soon to be besieged by product demos on the show floor, this was neither funny nor particularly instructive.

The next guest, Michael Tilson, vice president of services for the Santa Cruz Operation and currently president of the UniForum board of directors, attempted to balance the perspective. He conceded that Kruger's demo showed interoperability but based on a "predecided architecture and APIs." Any such structure determined by a single vendor cannot be open, he suggested.

At this point, the plenary had reached familiar ground, each side staking out well-known turf. The third guest, Hugh Brownstone, vice president of MIS software services for IMS America, a provider of market research to the pharmaceutical industry (and also a member of the UniForum board), brought a user's perspective. He made it clear that his firm, which has settled on Windows for desktop systems and UNIX for back-end servers, will choose IT pragmatically, based on its own needs.

"The fundamental starting points of Microsoft and UNIX are different," Brownstone said. "It works that UNIX vendors compete so hard. Microsoft's hegemony doesn't produce that kind of price cutting and competition." On the other hand, he admitted that his company doesn't always choose the best of breed if a slightly less complete product has great market leverage. "Go where the money is," he insisted, quoting notorious bank robber Willie Sutton.

Brownstone then presented "Willie awards for installed base account control and brand management" to Microsoft and Oracle. This got the plenary back on the lighter side. It concluded with all on the dais reciting an open systems pledge of allegiance.

While there was a determined attempt at humor from all parties, when the talk grew serious it was evident that the opposing camps still disagree fundamentally - and that users, as represented by Brownstone, are concentrated on issues beyond the politics of open computing. As so the plenary reminded its audience of the state of the art.