From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 06:19:09 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Nader Letter to Bill Gates
Message-ID: <v031107b5b060516c84e4@[139.167.130.248]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Yet another spit take arrives in the e-mail.

This seems to be another great week for hilarity...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

--- begin forwarded text


Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 13:21:43 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: love@cptech.org
Originator: info-policy-notes@essential.org
Sender: info-policy-notes@essential.org
Precedence: bulk
From: James Love <love@cptech.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <info-policy-notes@essential.org>
Subject: Nader Letter to Bill Gates
MIME-Version: 1.0

The following in Ralph Nader's letter to Bill Gates, inviting him to
Ralph's November 13, 14 conference on Apprasising Microsoft's Global
Stategy.
   Jamie

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Ralph Nader
                    P.O. Box 19312
                 Washington, D.C. 20036

October 2, 1997

Mr. William H. Gates
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052


Dear Mr. Gates:

The customary executive mind receiving a letter such as this would be
inclined toward prejudgment and denial, instead of anticipation and
affirmation. But as a dominant corporate architect and philosopher of
the information highway--note your expressed desire in your book, The
Road Ahead, to open the dialogue about how society should shape its
future in an age of tremendous technological change--you should be
willing to include in that dialogue--Appraising Microsoft and Its Global
Strategy.

That, as it happens, is the title of a conference in Washington, D.C. on
November 13 and 14, which Essential Information and I are sponsoring and
to which you are invited to make a presentation. Let me describe briefly
what has led to this unique event.

As you may know, our various groups work in the consumer safety and
environmental protection areas with a dual focus on both corporate and
government accountability. We also have been pioneers in advancing
freedom of information standards in government and widening the access
to justice by all citizens. Concentration of economic power, along with
its abuses, has long been a concern of ours and we have worked with many
people of conscience inside companies, some of whom became effective
whistle-blowers. Recently, people in many different kinds of businesses
have been expressing fear and criticism about your company's business
practices and strategies. At first, we were prone to dismissing such
complaints as reflecting envy toward the dominant company. But as the
private criticism became more diverse--flowing from downstream commerce
well beyond software and hardware companies and from more disinterested
scholars, commentators, writers, public officials and customers, it
became an incentive toward further public exploration.

Even this accumulated criticism did not suffice to warrant a gathering
to explicitly explore the many forays and practices of your company's
business strategies, which you must agree, have a range of ambitions and
ongoing initiatives in more industrial and commercial directions locally
to globally than possibly any business entity in modern history. What
tipped the scale was the fear of speaking out by thoughtful people in
the business world who otherwise have the position, energy and the
resources to do so. Self-censorship brought on by the detailed fear of
Microsoft retaliation--itself seen as a many pronged cluster--is not
healthy in any economy. Especially when this fear is not imagined but
rooted in past and current actions which are described and attributed to
your company's high velocity momentum.

On the other hand, you and your associates are described as so fearful
of becoming another Digital Equipment or IBM missing a "big bend in the
road", as you put it, that you are moving to position yourself as the
"new middleman" on every lane of the information highway possible. To
some observers, Microsoft playing the insecure and challenged role, as
depicted in an article you may have relished on the cover of Barron's
(September 15, 1997), assumes an irony of King Kong proportions.
Seasoned executives are quaking before the relentless Microsoft wave in
such lines of commerce as banking, real estate, insurance, car dealers,
travel services, cable television, newspaper media and entertainment.
The June 5, 1997 issue of the Wall Street Journal reported a detailed
Microsoft strategy memorandum, deepened by interviews with your
executives, that foreshadowed the "first a partner then a competitor"
approach. Your critics assert that using a bundling strategy, together
with tactical free offerings, made possible by monopolistically garnered
profits, and a punitive "stick" response to your challengers makes
Microsoft a leading candidate for antitrust action if only the
enforcement agencies had the up-to-date knowledge, willpower and
resources to apply these necessary laws for a free, fair and competitive
economy.

The conference participants are among the few who are still willing to
speak openly of their concerns, findings and recommendations. Many plead
for an open, not closed, architecture, for a digital future that is a
patrimony, a commonwealth within which the best and the most
consumer-sensitive will have an opportunity to prevail. They seek an
information highway that is ungated where they see such a highway
increasingly become gated.

You, Steve Ballmer and Nathan Myhrvold have what you believe to be
formidable responses to these declarations. Responses that are both
specific and that rise to the level of national public policy regarding
the information infrastructure in the economy. Focusing on the "Big Kid
on the Block"--Microsoft--addresses the core concern directly and avoids
the nuanced generalities and abstractions that have no operational
realities attached to them.

The agenda for the conference is being completed and includes the
enclosed topics with the speakers who have confirmed their presence.
Other presenters will be added in the coming days. In the interest of
joining the issues, your presentation should come near the completion of
the conference on November 14. We intend to have a serious, coherent and
consequential conference that will lead to greater public understanding
of the trends and the issues that will affect business and the general
public as you wrote about in The Road Ahead. Your industry is thrusting
toward increasing arcane language, acronyms and specializations that are
narrowing the public or lay audience which, ever enlarging, is critical
in making this technology serve the broadest of human interest and
well-being.

We are inviting Vice President Albert Gore, your friend and information
highway colleague, to participate in the conference. Being an open
gathering and near his office, his presence would neither entail the
cost, time and closed-door nature of his earlier visit to your 100
executives meeting near Seattle. This should increase the likelihood of
his acceptance, one might hope.

Should you wish to discuss this invitation further, please call me or
John Richard of Essential Information at (202)387-8034. Of course, you
may wish to have other Microsoft executives attend the conference and
they are welcome to come and absorb the many currents of information and
activity, both in the formal sessions and in the informal corridor and
coffee break discussions that are often so valuable. While there is a
conference fee, there is no outside funding or sponsorship to inhibit or
compromise the integrity of the proceedings.

Sincerely,



Ralph Nader

Enclosure

--------------------------------------------------------------------
This some other documents about the conference are on the Web at:

        http://www.essential.org/appraising/microsoft/




--
James Love | Center for Study of Responsive Law
P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 | http://www.cptech.org
voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 | love@cptech.org

--- end forwarded text



-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>