Winton duPont Films

Netscape
Reel 112

Talk about Bill Gates

Well some of the comparisons think with earlier industrial

tycoons are not well thought out Hes not Rockefeller What

hes doing is nothing like what Rockefeller did What hes doing
is lot like what guy named Samuel Insoll did which is stitch

together all the electric utilities in the United States in the

Twenties and Thirties and to over

try get monopoly electricity
Gates is system builder And he does not control the raw
material He continues the standard the glue that makes lot
of things possible and the theres no in the
precedent
computer/electronic age for what hes trying to do but mean
think that the ATT is good precedent from the analog age and so
is the electrical utilities Because what he wants to do is

become common carrier but hes he wants to privately own it and

be not be regulated Because if look what the
you happened to
electric power industry and the phone industry both became
they
regulated Thats one outcome from these lawsuits against Gates
is that-- its far fetched one but if the analogy is lot
closer to say that Windows or Windows NT that is common
carrier that anything-- When the Justice Department says
Microsoft should be forced to offer you know Netscape on there or
other peoples products thats basically what theyre saying
Just the way the phone company cant turn you down they cant
say--well we dont like your business were not going to give
you phone number They must give you phone number they must
display you on their network And thats what think the

challenge is for Microsoft is if theyre going to be common

carrier if theyre going to control everything in the desktop
software and then electronic commerce from the look and feel
which thinks reasonable expectation they need to be asked to
take all comers They cant make deal like TCI does in cable
and say--well because you wont let us buy 5% of your station
were not going to put you on our on the air Thats essentially
Winton duPont Films
Netscape
Reel 112

what Microsoft has the power to do now is to say to software

company or service--well offer your service if we have enough

of an incentive And the reason why you might not want to use the

telephone network or the electrical power system as an analogy is

because those were physical plants They had to be wire had to

be strewn across the country poles had to be put in holes had to

be dug connections are to be made to peoples homes and

businesses And so there was an efficiency question--could you do

this twice could you do this three times No you couldnt

With software you can do it twice you could do it three times
Theres no reason why you or cant have hundred connections to
the internet why we cant have thousand browsers Because they
all are not taking up any physical space And theres no

materials being expended And just the whole economics of

duplication isnt the same So think what some people might

argue is--here lets lets make sure that Microsoft doesnt just
clobber people unfairly but that they are going to spawn
imitators rivals that like what
span something they span
IL

So its not like David and Goliath

CU

Well heres the more likely threats is you know ATT buys

Netscape IBM buys Netscape and its clear that Netscape doesnt
have enough pieces to threaten Microsoft But you could see

Netscape in combination with IBM or in combination with ATT or

British Telecom or something like that Then you start to see
more formidable competitor dont think that Netscape long term

can survive as an independent company mean thats already

pretty clear

Will Gates be viewed as the writer and

greatest code Andreeson
honorable mention

Well think theyre both you know Gates is the premier

Winton duPont Films
Netscape
Reel 112

businessman of the last part of this century so he understood

before anybody else the money to be made from standardizing
computers Marc Andreeson think understood within limited
area that you could standardize the use of the web and that would
bring lot of riches But think Marc Andreesons already
footnote hes already forgotten man think many people are

already embarrassed they ever thought Marc Andreeson was someone

important and are vigorously hiding all the wonderful things they
wrote about him years ago when they knew very little about him
Probably his role in the whole internet world wide web revolution
is going to be very minimal in years ahead He clearly
expropriated lot of peoples ideas he tossed them off as his

own which theres long tradition for Bill Gates of course did
that too on an even grander scale But Gates has had better
follow through and thats the big difference

Intellectual property

Well thats why mean you know its just one persons
intellectual property is freebie to the next guy mean Bill
Gates first program that he sold for computer was called Basic
It was Basic for particular personal the Altair
computer
Well that was based on free program that some professors at
Dartmouth designed You know in true sense he made
probably 5%

changes in the program and then he to sell it as

got totally
total package that he owned Similarly Marc Andreeson and the

Netscape people built what they did on public domain university

code Theres nothing illegal about it but it points the
up way
the software culture has lived in these two realms the non
commercial and the commercial and the realms tend to bleed
together and they dont bleed together in neat way And so you
have anomalies like this you know someone making fortune on the
work of dozens of dozens of people that for various reasons didnt
see the need or the sell it
possibility to
Winton duPont Films
Netscape
Reel 112

Such is the market

Well it speaks to different peoples characters though too Some

people have the will to power other people are more scholarly
Marc Andreeson is extremely ambitious power himgry person who
for while the has kept it up Now pretty soon hell be out
in the street actually think youll see him at his own garage
sale within few years

Is there physical quality to code writing

Well theres some things that are similar to it though You know
the code thats in an airplane Boeing airplane if that code

breaks the airplane might crash So there are some examples of

where software is very much like physical property mean the
pagers all those pagers that went out recently you know that was
software problem in part when
So software breaks or fai1-bad
things can happen in the real world Thats where think the

quality and the concerns come in that as more and mrrrg ur

fles depend on software working properly think were going to

pay more attention to to the process that it gets made But once
youve made-- the big difference is if youve made copy of MS
DOS or you can make an unlimited number of and the
copies
incremental cost is very very small It drops basically and
its small If youre drilling for oil you know each barrel

costs about as much as the last barrel and the same when
thing

youre making car So the economics is completely different

and that is part of its appeal Because the from
payoff writing
good piece of software or producing movie is enormous because

you dont have any incremental costs And thats where the global
market comes in It just so happens that global markets have

opened up right at the same time this has occurred so theres

sort of twining effect here People arent cars and steel
making
Winton duPont Films
Netscape
Reel 112

as much because theres no incremental benefit to selling that

widely whereas software and movies--hey you toss out new you
know theres billion Chinese there the billion Indians you get
them involved and for very little extra money you make you
triple or quadruple your revenues So think that theres truth
that its got physical properties and untruth to it