The year 1997 was one in which the computer industry’s financial troubles, government investigations, prominent lawsuits, and business consolidations captured as much attention as advancing technology and the continuing growth of the Internet and on-line services. It also was the year in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, an attempt to regulate the content of the Internet. The act had been signed by Pres. Bill Clinton in early 1996 in an attempt to protect children from pornography on the Internet, but opponents had claimed the law was so general it could be used to regulate other, more legitimate types of expression. The legislation made it a crime to publish indecent material on the Internet in a way that would make it available to those under 18; violators could receive up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In June the high court threw out the Communications Decency Act on the grounds that it was too broad, vague, and in violation of the Constitution because it "lacks the precision that the First Amendment requires when a statute regulates the content of speech."
It was a troubled year for Apple Computer, Inc. Already weakened by declining computer sales, Apple was in turmoil in July when Chairman and CEO Gilbert F. Amelio resigned from the company after some 18 months on the job, during which Apple lost nearly $1.5 billion. Apple’s board of directors reportedly was displeased by falling sales of Apple’s Macintosh computers. By the first quarter of 1997, Apple’s share of the U.S. personal computer (PC) market had fallen sharply to 3.3% as customers continued to favour PCs that ran Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system (OS). Though Amelio, who had been welcomed as a corporate turnaround specialist, was unsuccessful, the roots of Apple’s troubles ran deep. They were said to include lack of technical innovation, product-handling mistakes, and management upheaval, plus thousands of layoffs.
The year also marked the return of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, an articulate but temperamental leader who had been pressured to resign as chairman in 1985. Beginning as an unpaid Amelio adviser in December 1996 after his firm, NeXT Software, Inc., was acquired by Apple for more than $400 million, Jobs stepped up his participation in Apple’s management as the company tried to find a way back from the brink. In August he announced that Microsoft, a longtime rival of Apple, would buy $150 million in nonvoting Apple stock. Although the Mac OS competed with Windows, it was believed that Microsoft, which sold a substantial amount of applications software to the Macintosh market, had much to gain by helping its competitor remain in business. In September Jobs became interim CEO. During the same month, most of the Apple board of directors resigned, and Apple agreed to buy Power Computing Corp., a Macintosh clone manufacturer, for $100 million, in effect halting the corporate strategy of allowing others to produce clone copies of the Macintosh under license.
Microsoft had no financial problems but ran into difficulty with the federal government. In October it was accused by the U.S. Justice Department of violating the 1995 court order barring it from anticompetitive licensing activities. The Justice Department asked a federal court to impose a $1 million-a-day fine on the software industry leader for requiring PC manufacturers to use Microsoft’s World Wide Web browser, Internet Explorer, on their machines when they installed Microsoft’s Windows 95 OS. As evidence, the Justice Department said Compaq Computer Corp. claimed that it was threatened with the loss of its license to use Windows 95 if it removed Internet Explorer from some of its PCs. Microsoft said antitrust regulators were mistaken and that it would defend its position; it called the disagreement with Compaq an ordinary dispute over licensing terms.
The Microsoft-Justice Department battle had the potential to have a major impact on the marketing contest between Microsoft and Netscape Communications Corp., both of which were trying to make their own browser the most widely used on the Internet. Justice Department attorneys said they were trying to prevent Microsoft, which had a virtual monopoly in personal computer operating systems, from using that power to take control of the Internet browser market. At issue was the Justice Department’s interpretation of a 1995 consent decree with Microsoft that had settled another antitrust dispute. Microsoft said that far from violating the agreement, it was merely making technological improvements to its existing Windows 95 product by adding browser software to it.
Another industry leader, Intel Corp. under Chairman and CEO Andrew Grove , also drew the interest of federal government regulators. Intel, the world’s leading manufacturer of microprocessor chips for PCs, learned in September that it was being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in connection with its business practices in the PC market. The FTC said it wanted to determine if Intel had tried to monopolize or otherwise restrict price competition in its role as supplier of about 85% of the microprocessors used in PCs. Intel also was the subject of an antitrust investigation by the FTC from 1991 to 1993 that did not result in any action against the company.
In a surprising move, Digital Equipment Corp. sued Intel in May, alleging that Intel’s Pentium microprocessor chips violated as many as 10 Digital patents. Intel denied that it used Digital technology in the Pentium chip, but the suit, which sought unspecified damages, had the potential to cost Intel billions of dollars as well as cripple its ability to use the Pentium technology. The suit also had the potential to disrupt the entire PC industry by forcing Intel to redesign its Pentium chips.
The dispute involved Digital’s Alpha microprocessor. Digital claimed that Intel had access to proprietary information about the chip in 1990, when it was evaluating whether to license the Alpha technology from Digital. Intel responded by suing Digital for the return of information about Intel’s next-generation Pentium chips. Since many Digital computers depended on Intel chips, Intel’s apparent intent was to hurt Digital’s computer-development efforts and put Digital at a competitive disadvantage in the PC market. In August Intel filed a counterclaim that alleged Digital had violated 14 Intel patents. Intel claimed that the technologies the patents represented were widely used throughout Digital’s product line.
In the end the legal storm passed almost as fast as it began. In October Intel said it would buy Digital’s Alpha chip development and manufacturing operations for $700 million as part of an agreement to end their legal wrangling. Digital would keep its Alpha design teams to work on future versions of the chip. The deal also included a series of patent cross-licensing agreements for which Intel would pay Digital an undisclosed sum. Both companies said their lawsuits against each other would be kept on hold, pending government approval of the agreement.
A battle over software standards also escalated into a major lawsuit. Sun Microsystems sued Microsoft in October in a battle for control of Java language software standards. Sun’s suit claimed that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4.0 software contained a variant of Sun’s Java programming language that differed from the standard version. Sun accused Microsoft of infringing on Sun’s Java trademark, false advertising, breach of contract, unfair competition, and interference. Microsoft denied Sun’s allegations and countersued, seeking a dismissal of the Sun suit and asking the court to uphold Microsoft’s right to claim that its products were ’’Java compatible.’’
There were indications of at least one impending class-action lawsuit against several computer makers for allegedly continuing to sell PCs that could not cope with the "year 2000 problem." This problem, also called the "Millennium Bug," had arisen because old computer systems designed to use a two-digit date to represent the year (e.g., 97 to represent 1997) could fail on Jan. 1, 2000, when faced with the two-digit date 00; they would read this as 1900.
Consolidation continued in the fast-changing computing market. In February 3Com Corp. made the surprise announcement that it would merge with U.S. Robotics Corp., a leading manufacturer of high-speed modems, in a $6.6 billion exchange of stock. The intent was to build one of the largest companies in the rapidly growing field of computer networking. Japanese computer maker NEC Corp. announced in December that it was increasing its stake in Packard Bell NEC, Inc., from 20% to 49%.
In April Microsoft acquired WebTV Networks, which sold units that allowed people to connect to the Internet directly through their television sets, for $425 million. The software company said it wanted to "dramatically accelerate the merger of the Internet and television." In a similar move, Sun Microsystems in July said it would acquire Diba, a maker of Internet set-top boxes that could compete with Microsoft, but terms of that deal were not disclosed. As part of Sun, Diba was to work with consumer electronics companies to provide Internet-ready TVs, set-top boxes, satellite reception boxes, and "smart" telephones.
Compaq’s purchase of Tandem Computers for $4 billion in stock was completed in August. Compaq was a major manufacturer of PCs and PC server computers, and Tandem pioneered highly reliable machines called fault-tolerant computer systems. In September America Online Inc. (AOL) agreed to buy its biggest competitor, the CompuServe Inc. on-line service. While CompuServe would continue as a separate operation, it would be operated by AOL, which would then have a combined customer list of more than 11 million subscribers. In a complex deal a third company, telecommunications firm WorldCom, was to buy CompuServe from H&R Block for $1.2 billion in stock and then exchange CompuServe’s Interactive Services division for $175 million and AOL’s ANS Communications. In the end, WorldCom was to become AOL’s largest network service provider.