00100	REMARKS ON THE IBM ANTI-TRUST CASE
00200	
00300	
00400		1.  After more than five years of prosecuting IBM for being a
00500	monopoly, the Anti-trust Division of the Justice Department is  still
00600	completely  undecided  on  what objective it is trying to achieve. It
00700	seems to me that the following considerations are involved.
00800	
00900		2. The classical solution to the problem posed  by  the  fact
01000	that  IBM  has  70%  of  the  computer business would be to break the
01100	company up into three  to  five  parts.   If  this  were  done  in  a
01200	straightforward  way,  and each of the parts was allowed and required
01300	to compete for whatever part of the computer business it  could  get,
01400	the following would happen:
01500	
01600			a.  Each  of  the parts would be stronger than any of
01700	the non-IBM computer companies.  They  wouldn't  like  that  at  all,
01800	because  at  present  IBM  is  somewhat inhibited in its competition,
01900	while the parts would presumably not be.  As the old Russian  proverb
02000	goes,  "When  the  elephants  fight,  the  mice  get  stomped".   The
02100	customers might benefit from  a  greater  variety  of  approaches  to
02200	computer design and might suffer from a lack of standardization.
02300	
02400			b.  Presumably  the  parts  would  not carry on IBM's
02500	present "good works" such as the gifts to universities  and  a  large
02600	basic  research program.  There would be less pressure for them to do
02700	so, and their mutual competition would lead them to  feel  that  they
02800	couldn't afford it.
02900	
03000		2.  What  the  present  competitors of IBM would like and are
03100	angling towards is the creation of a cartel.  A  start  towards  this
03200	has  been  made in the settlement of the CDC anti-trust case with IBM
03300	essentially giving CDC its service bureau business and  agreeing  not
03400	to  compete  in the area. Any competitor would be pleased if IBM were
03500	forced to give it the peripherals business and agree not to  compete.
03600	In  the  disk  area,  at least, this would be tragic, because IBM has
03700	been the main technological innovator and all the recent improvements
03800	in  cost-effectiveness  have  been  due  to  IBM.   The creation of a
03900	cartel, i.e. a de facto division of the  computer  business  among  a
04000	group  of  companies  would  be  a  real tragedy and illegal to boot.
04100	Nevertheless, this seems to be where the JUstice Department is taking
04200	us.
04300	
04400		3. As a computer scientist and computer user, the one thing I
04500	would like to see the government do to  IBM  is  to  break  down  its
04600	secrecy.  What  IBM  is  doing in secret is often mistaken, and if it
04700	were subject to public criticism by  the  scientific  community,  IBM
04800	might  make  better  computers and programming systems.  Moreover, if
04900	IBM would publish its interface specifications well in  advance,  the
05000	competitors  could  compete  over  a  part of the product line.  This
05100	would be a benefit.  I would be inclined  to  settle  for  this,  and
05200	otherwise  let  IBM  continue  its  elephantine  careeer  unmolested.
05300	However, if it must be broken up, please leave each of the parts free
05400	to  compete  fully.   The present procedure of knocking pieces off of
05500	IBM and giving them to various incompetents seems to be the worst  of
05600	all  worlds.   I  don't  look  with favor on awarding $352,000,000 to
05700	Telex; it just seems like a reward for incompetence.