Windows on Capitalism (1995)

Software Review from the October 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Windows 95 by
 Microsoft

August 24 was "Windows Day", chosen by giant software company Microsoft to launch its new operating system, Windows 95. Accompanied by vast amounts of ballyhoo, an advertising budget of £100 million, acres of free newspaper publicity and a song from the Rolling Stones, Windows 95 is predicted to sell at least 20 million copies worldwide by the end of the year, further increasing the coffers of owner Bill Gates, richest man in America and one of the richest in the world (out-ranked only by a handful of kings and sultans). Computer stores opened all night so they could break open the champagne and sell the first copies at midnight. To judge from all the hype. Windows 95 represents a great leap forward for computer users. But is it, and (more important) does it reveal the efficiency of capitalism in developing new technology?

Windows 95 is an operating system, a program that allows the user to run word processors and other applications (from games to high-powered publishing tools). It certainly represents an advance over earlier versions of Windows and the previous operating system. MS-DOS. also marketed by (guess who?) Microsoft. As a simple example. Windows 95 means files can now be given any name at all. rather than being confined to a maximum of eight letters. You might wonder why Microsoft could get away for years with selling a product with such a daft restriction—especially when you learn that many other operating systems don't have such a limit. And indeed compared with what has long been available on some other computing systems, Windows 95 offers hardly anything that is new. Its likely success (as far as profit-making is concerned) is due far more to marketing skills and Microsoft's dominant position in the computing industry than to any technical excellence.

But the point of Windows 95 is not just for Microsoft to sell lots of copies. It is also intended to increase sales of some of Microsoft’s other products, such as spreadsheets and presentation software, to go with the new operating system. In addition. many buyers will find that they need a new computer with more memory and a faster processor in order to get the best out of it. And most insidious of all, Windows 95 comes together with the software for accessing Microsoft's own on-line mail and information system, Microsoft Network. If things go according to plan, this will almost immediately have more users than other such systems, not because it is in any way better but just because of Microsoft’s size and marketing muscle. No wonder some competitors have tried to take Microsoft to court in the US on grounds of constituting a monopoly.

The main thing all this shows is that so much of what passes for innovation and technical progress under capitalism has far more to do with hype and clever advertising than it does with real benefits to consumers. All the resources put into developing and marketing Windows 95 (and many other products) in no way represent useful work: much of it duplicates what has already been done.and is concerned with doing down competitors rather than creating a better product. Production for profit is wasteful and inefficient, and does not achieve what its apologists claim.

Paul Bennett