Here is my take on it...
If you really want insight into the case, you really need to READ the
case : http://usvms.gpo.gov/findfact.html
It is NOT a case about people being jealous of Bill Gates and Microsoft
for being successful and making a lot of money. It is a case about
Microsoft's flagrant disregard for the law. Monopoly law is a LOT
stricter than regular corporation law, and the findings that Microsoft is
a monopoly will make it pretty simple to prove that they did not abide by
good, ethical business practices, but rather ones that are downright
illegal if you are a monopoly. THey are pretty shady if you aren't a
monopoly, but they ARE illegal if you are a monopoly.
Basically, Microsoft feels threatened by anything that threatens to break
its monopoly over the "Intel-compatible" operating systems, so they've
been leveraging that monopoly power and killing off anything that
threatens it, thus hurting consumers (by not being able to gain by
whatever may be better than Microsoft's). They've been leveraging their
monopoly power by telling AOL that they have to use IE if they want to be
included in the "online systems" folder in Windows (using the fact that
they have a monopoly in the OS, to gain market share with their other
program, IE). They've also been forcing consumers to pay for copies of
windows, even the people who don't WANT windows. And by "integrating"
the browser into Windows, they were taking a big step into controlling
the browser market - and plus they wouldn't offer any computers WITHOUT
windows, even though not all consumers wanted a browser "built into"
windows (businesses for example).
Another part of the case stated that MS threatened to discontinue
development of Mac Office if Apple didn't set IE as the default browser,
and made it difficult for someone to change it to Netscape.
What is most interesting, is that Microsoft felt VERY threatened by
Java. Java, being a language that can make having an OS monopoly
irrevelant, is a direct threat to their OS market share. So, by
controlling the browser market (the tool that distributes the Java VM to
any computer that runs on it) they thought they could extinguish Java,
and thus keep people HAVING to have windows in order to run their
programs. They also tried to make Java win32 only by changing the java
code that their development kit created, non-java compliant. Since Sun
kept control over Java, and has a strict license for it, this is illegal
and one of the things that Microsoft and Sun have been in court over.
Microsoft wants to keep control of the OS market because Windows is MS's
bread and butter. By controlling the browser market, (and illegally
leveraging their OS monopoly to do so), they could control Java, and thus
extinguish one big thing that would threaten their cash cow.
THIS is what most of the case is about... not about peoples jealousy that
MS is rich. The Govt could give a damn who makes money and who doesn't,
Dianna
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
