It's Time to Shrink The Big Software Box
AMERICANS are used to big boxes packed with cereal or cookies, but mostly with air. But it's a surprise to see the same packaging strategy from the computer industry, which constantly boasts of miracles of compression -- of laptops seven-tenths of an inch thin, multiple megabytes squeezed onto tiny disks and digital assistants the size of a Saltine.
So why does a program like Windows 98 (about $90), recorded on a single CD-ROM, arrive wrapped in a box that measures 8 inches by 10 inches by 2 inches and include a manual, a clutch of coupons and a  cardboard stiffener folded with origami cleverness?
The standard big software box is designed to let vendors build a bright wall of product to attract customers. Peter Janssen, former vice president of merchandising of Egghead Software, advises software companies 'to use the package as your ad.' The big box also discourages shoplifting and, packagers say, protects the disk from damage during shipping.
But John Ruston, an economic analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund, who led efforts against McDonald's clamshell hamburger package, says, 'Generally, most software is egregiously overpackaged.' Software packages, Mr. Ruston notes, use virgin paper instead of recycled. The fat manuals are often redundant, since the information is already on the disk. So why do the packages continue to be so big?
Mr. Ruston attributes the persistence of wasteful software packaging to industry inertia. 'This is the old outdated mentality of giving the customer value by providing a lot of stuff,' Mr. Ruston says.
It's the 'lot of stuff' that's the problem. One day not long ago, I heard a rumble behind my desk and realized that the Shaq-high stack of software boxes had toppled over. So much cardboard, so much air. What for? Haven't we been here before?
And not just with the McDonald's clamshell. Eight years ago, an organization called Ban the Box challenged the notion of the so-called long box, the 6-by-12-inch package that was devised to hold music CD's, which were then replacing albums. Peter Gabriel, Bonnie Raitt and U2 refused to have their music distributed in long boxes. As with computer disks, the complaint was that there was too much material surrounding the small kernel of product. Eventually, the long box was phased out.  Today, the jewel box shelters CD's, electronically tagged against shoplifting.
Thinking of the victory over the CD long box, New York Assemblywoman Susan John sent a letter two years ago to Bill Gates, requesting that Microsoft provide leadership in reducing software overpackaging. She pointed out that reduction would be both environmentally sound and would save Microsoft money. She never received a response.
Package designers at Microsoft claim, however, that their packages are getting smaller as their manuals get smaller. (The one valid excuse for bigger packages -- the multiple disks that used to be required for some programs -- is no longer valid; today, it is rare for a program to require several disks.)
Heidi Rothauser, a Microsoft spokeswoman, says that existing packaging is still needed for security and protection of the disks. But she said, 'We are working to reduce the size of packaging where possible.' And there is some progress: the company has abandoned the interior jewel case that holds the disk itself for programs like Windows 98.
Still, that's not enough. The New York Times asked Tibor Kalman of M & Company, a design firm, to create a dummy package for Microsoft Word, to show how it could be done. His alternative: a cardboard slipcase with a much smaller manual and standard CD-ROM inside.  The big software packages, he says,  are like the humongous portions of pasta some restaurants serve. 'It shows a disrespect for the intelligence of the audience,' he said.
Getting rid of the software big box may require the same strategy that defeated the CD long box: software hotshots, like the rock stars, could refuse to have their Mega-Destructacon game released in anything but a smaller, less-wasteful box.
PUBLIC EYE