Snot the way I see it. :->   After reading "lots" of analysis and commentaries
on the subject, it seems the main sticking point the DOOOJ had with M$ was the
allegations M$ bullied other companies into putting M$ Office and other
applications on Windows PCs to the detriment of other application suite.  It
was also alleged that M$ Office folks had access to undocumented interfaces to
Windows that gave them an unfair advantage.  Duh!  I should think any company
that produces an OS and applications that run on said OS would be in the same
situation.

What many people were hoping for was the DOOOJ to recommend the source of
Windows OS be given to several Baby Bills and to then turn them loose to
develop their own OS.  These same people neglected to explain why this would be
desirable in any way.  (Just what we needed dozens of versions of Windows!)
 Other people were hoping the DOOOJ would force M$ to make public the source
for Windows.   These people neglected to explain how and why they would
circumvent the intriguing concept known as "Private Property"  which is one of
the cornerstones of our system of laws.

I suspect Bill Gates will fight this all the way to the Supreme Court and it
may take years to get there.  In the meantime, the current administration and
its DOOOJ have not really explained how this action has helped the consumers so
far and how the consumers have been harmed in the past.  For an administration
so driven by polls and focus groups, it is interesting to note there is no
consumer movement or uproar driving this issue.  On the other hand there are
lots of stock, 401K and Mutual Funds holders who have been hurt by these
actions in the last few months.  M$ was not the only company whose stock went
down.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   COLE,GLENN (Non-HP-SantaClara,ex2) [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Monday, May 01, 2000 3:46 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: OT: MS update

Steve Cooper writes:

> I thought that the best article I've read so far was in Saturday's San
> Jose Merc.  Basically, it pointed out that after you split MS into an OS
> company and a Business Productivity company, you now have two
> monopolies.  This split does nothing to promote competition, nothing to
> boost the other players in the marketplace.  It just separates the
> company along a somewhat clean line, allowing each to dominate in its
> own area.

I've been wondering about this as well.

The closest I could come to understanding it is that the Windows
group may no longer threaten vendors with "Put [this app] on the
desktop or we'll yank your license."  Except, of course, if
Internet Explorer is classified as "part of the OS" -- and thus
left in the Windows group -- then the exact same scenario could
be replayed (with the small change that no major player is left
in the browser market).

--Glenn