title: More "will they ever learn", or my big brother can beat up yours link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/more-will-they-ever-learn-or-my-big-brother-can-beat-up-yours/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 272 created: 2009/08/01 16:54:11 created_gmt: 2009/08/01 16:54:11 comment_status: open post_name: more-will-they-ever-learn-or-my-big-brother-can-beat-up-yours status: publish post_type: post

More "will they ever learn", or my big brother can beat up yours

Ah, the “new breed” is at it again.

In a classic memory-of-a-nine-year-old moment, the execs over at Apple, presumably at the urging or with the consent of, those over at AT&T (a/k/a Cingular reborn), denied permission for Google’s Voice to run on their iPhone.

Predictably (at least for those of us who were around when the “real” AT&T got hit upside the head by the U.S. government regulatory shovel), the FCC has now waded in and begun asking all kinds of questions — the nature of pretty obviously telegraph that this will not end well for the computer giant and it’s big telecom friend.

The headline in today’s Washington Post really says it all: Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone.

The two FCC queries highlighted in the article that really set the tone for what follows are:

“Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications?”

and

“Please explain any differences between the Google Voice iPhone application and any Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications that Apple has approved for the iPhone.”

Of course, given their track record so far there’s no reason to believe that the kids over at Apple and AT&T will actually grasp the potentially devastating (from a market and financial point of view) impact of having the FCC with boots on the ground in this fight. It’s very likely in fact that they’ve got an army of sycophantic lawyers, marketeers and investment consultants who are stroking their mighty egos right now by telling them how brilliant they’ve been in “monopolizing” the market — although they’d never actually use the “M” word because at least some of them, like me, were probably around when Judge Greene brought the hammer down on the world’s most powerful telecommunications monopoly.

Where these guys always go wrong is in assuming that they can bully their way into control of a market, particularly in the area of technology. While many of us have decried the anti-competitive and innovation-suppressing effect of intellectual property regulation such as software patents, there’s been a consistent trend (with a few notable exceptions) towards promoting innovation and access through substantive competition.

This is something even Microsoft has been learning in its tangles with the European Commission over the bundling of Internet Explorer and other products with Windows.

Copyright 2004-2019 Phil Lembo