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And it worked until they lost the anti-trust suit (which started in 1969, lasted 13 years!)

IBM didn't lose. The government dropped the case in 1982.

http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/library/collections/manuscripts/findingaids/ibmantitrustpart2.ACC1980.htm#bioghist

... the case was withdrawn by William F. Baxter, assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, Department of Justice, on January 8, 1982. Baxter signed a Stipulation of Dismissal that stated the government's charges were "without merit."

Microsoft's monopoly is perhaps the best exemplar of the evil of antitrust.

It is the result of the US DoJ's antitrust persecution of IBM. http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/1980.htm

Think about it. Why did the mountain come to Mohamed? Why did IBM go shopping for a floppy DOS?

A floppy DOS is a weekend project for IBM. They could have made a better PC-DOS than Microsoft ever has, at a lower price for themselves and their customers.

There is only one entity that could have forced IBM to make such a stupid decision, and that was the US Government.

I am of split mind regarding antitrust prosecution of Microsoft. I admit to enjoying the schadenfreude, "he who lives by antitrust dies by antitrust," yet I understand at some point the madness of antitrust must stop.

Because lawyers are lousy system architects! They are rarely learned in discrete logic; they are only taught pretzel logic.

No intervention? There have been decades of intervention. Check out one list of IBM Antitrust Suit Records which claims a printed length of 41 linear feet - and that list ends in 1980. You might also want to read up on the most famous case with Telex v. IBM. It's kind of interesting. The last linked article was written in 1974 before all the appeals started.

Synopsis: The Government mopped the courtroom floor with IBM for a dozen years ending in 1982 with the slowest, most expensive bureaucratic paper chase ever undertaken by the DOJ. The DOJ ultimately dropped the suit. IBM started slipping in the marketplace at the hands of Silicon Valley startups, automatically disproving a monopoly condition. They lost two-thirds of their worth over the next several years.

Although IBM posessed huge market power at one time, they were also subject to market forces and competition in spite of what the Government was unsuccessfully trying to prove against them. The DOJ had no case after that. Many say Microsoft is on the leading edge of their downward slide right now.

IBM is still the constant subject of numerous Antitrust actions triggered by competitors, the latest being Wallace vs. IBM over bundling Linux on their machines at an unbeatable price (free).

Examples of sanctioned monopolies would be utilities like power companies, the phone company, gas companies, cable television companies etc. The Government moves very slowly but is always examining accusations of monopoly in the free enterprise system, usually in response to competitors complaining.

IBM has its own history of antitrust entanglement, and I believe still operates under some of the consent decrees from that era. Launching a hostile takeover bid against a company that is current suing them for breach of contract would almost certainly invite a lot of the wrong kind of regulatory and legislative scrutiny.

Also: IBM has more money than god: as of their most recent financial statements, they maintain a cash balance of $8,250,000,000 (That's billion with a B, folks.) While the expense of fighting off SCO might seem insane to you or me, and would bankrupt a smaller company, it's literally pocket change to IBM, and it is very likely that their board of directors consider making an example of SCO to be a worthwhile investment.

Credibility in business contracts is a very important thing, and SCO is making a direct claim that IBM entered into a contract with them and proceeded to rob them blind. That's not a charge that any CEO is going to take lying down, and if they have to spend a few million dollars and a few years to have a judge authoritatively dismiss SCO's claim, it's probably worth it.

2) The US government stepped in and broke up their [IBM] monopoly.

You are misinformed. The US government dropped the case in 1982. No monopoly decision was even reached, so there was obviously no break up of IBM forced by the courts.

See http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/1980.htm.

Maybe you were thinking of the US governement case against AT&T, which did result in a forced breakup? It did take place in the same time frame....

'... the best thing for IBM to do would be to print out every single version as requested and send the resultant 20 tonnes or so of paper to SCO.'

IBM thought that way, until about 30 years ago.

At the time, IBM was the big bully of the computer industry. When victims sued, a standard IBM tactic was to flood the plaintiff with documents: a great indiscriminate memo dump from one of the world's biggest bureaucracies. Finding anything relevant would be like finding a particular needle in a needle factory.

When Control Data produced the CDC 6600, IBM responded by announcing a supercomputer of its own, hurting sales of the 6600 as potential customers waited for IBM. IBM didn't actually have any such machine in the works. Eventually CDC sued IBM, and, as usual, IBM sent documents by the trainload.

But IBM's lawyers forgot about progress and CDC's freakin' big computers. Cray hired an army of typists and began building a database of memos' dates, subjects, authors, and recipients. (Later, CDC spun off this group; it still exists.) When IBM found out, it didn't even pause to change its collective underwear before settling the suit, on condition that the database be destroyed (warning very long document; only click if you really care).

I'm sorry. I remember too much of the antitrust suit against IBM to fully trust them. I'll thank them for each thing they do to help advance free software, and the computer industry as a whole, but I reserve the right to examine each decision individually.

1. The government contended that IBM planned to and did eliminate emerging competition that threatened the erosion of IBM's monopoly power by devising and executing business strategies which were not illegal, but which did not provide users with a better price, a better product or better service. Specifically, it was alleged that IBM had hindered the development of service and peripherals competitors by maintaining a single price policy for its machines, software and support services (bundling); it had granted discounts for universities and other educational institutions and by so doing influenced those places to select IBM computers; and that IBM had introduced underpriced models knowing that they could not be produced on time and did this to prevent the placement of competitors' machines. For example, IBM had prematurely announced new systems such as System/360 claiming that it was a superior product and that its introduction was imminent when in fact, it was several years from completion.

Oh I think that IBM has plenty of its own history with the government to not need Microsoft's help here. You do remember that 20 years ago they were the evil empire.

He might want to take a look at these records before deciding to take on IBM in court.

41 feet of paper!

At first glance, that did't seem to be all that much. After all, a standard page is 11 inches tall, so 41 feet is only around 45 pages end to end. It wasn't until reading the article you linked that I realized they were talking about a 41' stack of paper... Wow.

He might want to take a look at these records before deciding to take on IBM in court.

41 feet of paper!