When some of tech’s top dogs appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today to lay out their views on competitive practices in the computer industry, Apple Computer’s interim chief executive Steve Jobs wasn't there.
He simply wasn't invited.
The fact that he apparently wasn't thought important enough to join Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Sun Microsystem’s Scott McNealy and Netscape’s Jim Barksdale on the congressional stage did not go unnoticed by Apple fans.
John Farr, editor of the Apple Computer News column at the Mac-centric news site Applelinks, suggested last week that readers might want to ask Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch to request Jobs’s testimony. Farr posted a similar suggestion to the Evangelist mailing list for Apple fans.
"I’m sure Bill Gates is going to use the opportunity to support his interests," Farr said in a telephone interview. "It just seems incredible that the Apple side of the story won’t be represented," he added.
Given the cast of characters, Farr predicted that "the possibilities are pretty good for a cat fight. ... I’m sure (Jobs) would be quite nice to Gates, actually, but he would still at least be there, and Apple would be mentioned in prime time" - exposure Farr said "would do wonders for the company."
And a few wonders wouldn’t hurt.
While Microsoft is struggling to convince the US Department of Justice and federal judges that its aggressive move into the Internet browser market is not monopolistic, and while it continues to expand its stranglehold on the PC operating-system marketplace, Apple is fighting to hold on to a fraction of its once beefy market share. Apple, which owned the PC market in the mid-1980s, reported earlier this year that it can now claim only 3 percent.
Apple and its prospect never showed up on the Judiciary Committee's radar.
"We have our witness list in place," said spokeswoman Jeanne Lopatto, confirming that some Jobs-related email had indeed arrived in Hatch’s inbox but had not led to an invitation. She couldn’t say how many email messages had been received.
"We get requests from people who want to testify and we have to decide who we want to testify," she added. The original list for this hearing included only Gates and his arch-rivals at Sun and Netscape.
Gates apparently got a word in with Hatch, however, and asked that the committee hear from a few more voices in the Microsoft camp. The result is that Michael Dell of Dell Computer and Doug Burgum of Great Plains Software Inc. will be there - as well as venture capitalist Stewart Alsop.
Lopatto said it’s likely that there will be more meetings on the issue. While few hearings provide the opportunity for company promotion that today’s did, Jobs may still get his chance.
