Well, now that lawyers are mentioned, I have a comment.
The problem is not Microsoft, the problem is that government has not broken up Microsoft into separate companies, one owning the highway, another the cars that run on the highway. Until it does, the cars made by Microsoft will run well on the highway and cars made by others won't.
Monopoly is and always has been the cancer of capitalism. Without government action to cut out that cancer, being Microsoft in the current context, or weaken it, monopoly results. We all know that monopolists have absolute power, or effectively so, and that absolute power corrupts. So Microsoft continues to do whatever it can to destroy its rivals, and will continue to do so until (and unless) government stops it, until, that is, we get an administration with the courage to enforce our anti-trust laws. Those who think Microsoft, or any company, will stifle itself, don't understand capitalism. Under Clinton, the government was doing its duty....it was breaking up Microsoft. Then Bush came along and stopped all that. Bush isn't smart enough to understand that for capitalism to flourish, the biggest (and sometimes the best) have to go under the knife.
As an aside, Bush's failure to comprehend that it is competition that brings the benefits of capitalism to the people also caused him to empty the federal treasury to his friends via no-bid contracts, and Bush's friends are the only ones who, in today's economy, have any cash. Thankfully, term limits will likely solve many of these problems, probably explaining Microsoft's attempt to gobble up Yahoo now, before the election.
John
