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Microsoft's Watered-down Version Of DOJ Remedy
reuel writes: "Here are Microsoft's comments on the DOJ's proposed break-up plan. Looks like
they want to preserve the chance to play the same old tricks -- special and secret OEM deals, required but unpublished interfaces, extend and extinguish, and an interesting new one: rights to inspect the source code of competitors' products!"
"Gates and Balmer are brilliant!" "Microsoft plays hardball!" Yeah, right. How about a different theory: they're nucking futs!
Look at one end of the paper tube and you see a company with true moxie, with genuine chutzpah, that with a conviction on Sullivan Act violations still in the public's memory buffer is willing to keep up the tempo of scumbag activities because they've got it all worked out in advance how they're going to win hands down and nothing that anyone does or knows matters.
Look at it the other way, though and what you see is a bunch of supremely arrogant squirrels who couldn't get laid with a gun, doing the only things they can do because the voices in their heads tell them to. Corporate culture goes a long way.
It's an interesting way of looking at things, and only time will tell whether or not it will really work for them.
TygerFish
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
>Microsoft has definately abused it's power as a
> market leader (maybe even a monopoly)
MS was found guilty of illegal business practices. In the real world of corporate life, when a company repeatedly and illegally abuses monopoly power (and I do belive they have monopoly power), they are punished. They way monopolies are punished is by breaking them up.
The reason the DOJ is pursuing this admitedly extreme remedy is that MS has repeatedly ignored or circumvented other less drastic injunctions. If they had not shown that prior disregard for government imposed remedies, I would not support a breakup. However, while it pains me to see the government interfering in the private sector so much, it would be worse if when the next Big Thing(tm) came along, MS could use it's dominence in the OS and productivity applications market to stifle honest competition for market share.
Nothing in this breakup plan is likely to weaken the stranglehold MS holds on certain current technologies -- if Linux (or anything else) is to unseat MS as the OS of the masses it will have to be soley on vastly superior technology and lower cost. However, hopefully we can protect as yet undiscovered markets from unfair and predatory business practices.
No matter how this plays out it is going to be a pain in the ass for a lot of people for some time. However, I think this is the price we have to pay if we want better competition in the long run.
Both for AT&T and NSI, the breakup of a monopoly (though obviously very different) caused concerns of incompatability and consumer harm. Yet when all was said and done, people figured out way of making things work together and the benefit to consumers has been great. I don't know how MS will do it, but I am sure it is possible.
And who is to say that the Apps division will only develop for Windows? They might, but on the other hand assuming the OS division doesn't backstab them early, they might see it as an opportunity to turn the OS into a commodity market. Consider that if every major application ran on Windows, Linux, BeOS, and *BSD, the choice of OS would be kind of like choosing between Dell and Micron... you get slightly different bells and whistles but you can do your work on any of them basically the same. This is probably going to happen sooner or later anyway, so if I were a major application vendor I would want to be in on it early.
Why is no one addressing the other major elements of the Microsoft proposal?
1. the insistance on having this classified as a divestiture, instead of a reorganization (and the attendant legal benefits) (see below)
2. The fact that Microsoft is an international entity -- and could easily remain monolithic abroad, with only the US units being separate (and unified control manifesting to an overseas unit!)
3. That under such an arrangement, American law would be of limited effect. (If you thought MS had clout with the US govt etc., imagine the consideration it might get from a small 'unfriendly' nation.
4) That its overseas units can only participate in the divestiture *in accordance with local laws* -- which can prevent the final overall divestiture indefinitely, certainly for many years (I think CitiGroup tried this trick a few years ago)
In fact, as I go down this document, I see more pitfalls and minefields than tha Maginot line and the former BDR/DDR (E/W German) border combined. And IANAL
Surely others are interested in the substantitive issues that will affect the Real World break-up far more than our (largely unheard) M$ bashing
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
The reason Microsoft has their monopoly, is because they control both the applications and the OS. They control the entire desktop.
This allows them to lock the user in. By splitting the company into an apps co and an OS co, the reasoning (hope?) is that the applications company will now be free to write apps for other OS's. And that the OS company will be more willing to work with other application vendors.
So the point is to foster innovation (!) and competion with companies other than Microsoft. If Microsoft was split in three companies that do the same things all you have is Microsoft competing against 'itself'. Other companies would still face the same barriers to entry they have today, only more so, since they have three 'Microsofts to contend with.
You are correct in observing that both companies will have a dominant position in their market. But neither would control the entire desktop. And that's the point.
Steve M
I know we all hate to see Microsoft go but the breaking of a monopoly is actually good for us since it rejuvenates competition. Take a look at what has happened in the domain name business with the breakup of the Network Solution monopoly, prices have dropped dramatically and companies are now offering more and more services with registrations all at a better price. I say nothing but good can come of breaking up Microsoft.
It won't hurt Microsoft that bad, I mean do you really think the breakup of Microsoft is going to make Windows go away? Of course not. There is still too much money to be made.
If I was the DOJ I would be severe as I possible could since Gates and Microsoft are known to be hard hitters and even with a breakup they will still fight their hardest to maintain the monopoly they have now. They'll go down kicking and screaming, you can count on it...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
The difference is that parts of IE are always running in the background whether it's being used or not; they're loaded at startup and whir away and consume resources until something inevitably crashes. If it were merely trying to be a shell, then it would be designed differently. As it is, it's not designed to be a shell or perhaps even a well functioning web browser. What it's designed to be is a monopoly extender/preserver (remember how ubiquitous browsers were supposed to make the underlying operating system irrelevant until MS killed that plan?), inseparable from the rest of the operating system, with the potential for client-side features that exclusively tie in with whatever proprietary server stuff MS throws at consumers next.
And your reference to KDE is inappropriate. Unlike IE, KDE can be completely removed from any linux system, and what's left is perfectly functional. IE is like a car radio that's had the ignition system wired through it; there's no reason why it should be required for the system to work, except that that's the way MS has specifically designed it. It's just so brutally dishonest.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Crossing out lines and inserting (usually in italics or bold) new text is the traditional legal way to show the changes within a document. Often used for laws and whatnot (so you can see how the law has been amended, etc). Microsoft is using this to emphasize how its plan is different from the government's...
dB
They have balls, I'll give them that. Balls but no brains. It takes some serious testicular fortitude to drop a dingleberry like this:
providing to the other any APIs, Technical Information, or Communications Interfaces, or technical information that is not simultaneously published, disclosed, or made readily available to ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs; provided that this provision shall not apply when (a) representatives of the Operating Systems Business and the Applications Business are engaged in technical discussions to ensure (1) that their products work well together or (2) that developers in one Business take into account input from developers in the other Business; (b) the two Businesses are working together cooperatively to develop new software technologies;and expect anybody to let it slide. It defeats the entire purpose of the breakup, and the DOJ certainly understands that. Do they expect that the DOJ of all groups would get bored by the legalese and overlook it?
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
The DOJ seems to think their counter proposal has enough merit that they asked for Judge Jackson for an extension in the case to review the merits of MSFT's proposal and will issue a response.
Of course, they may simply be doing this to cover themselves when (not if) the case is appealed and thus will be able to say they gave MSFT every chance and considered every option.
bill gates sat at his computer. the worry over the antitrust case had weighed heavily on his shoulders for so long. bill loaded up internet explorer. he admired the sleek, user-friendly interface. he smiled at the accomplishments of his grand company as the microsoft attorneys and upper-level management bickered about the details of microsoft's remedy proposal.
bill clicked his way through the internet, sailing from one site to the next. he decided to do a search on "microsoft." 3.141 million matches. he clicked the first link and waited. slowly, the slashdot home page rendered onto his screen. he browsed the list of articles on the page.
something caught his attention. bill looked fondly upon his aibo. he clicked "read more" under a story labelled, "SONY ANNOUNCES NEW AIBO: SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN MAGIC PETRIFICATION RAY A REALITY!" bill was intrigued by the multitude of insightful, informative, interesting and funny comments. he reached the very bottom of the page. his attention was taken by a fascinatingly titled post, "OPEN SOURCE NATALIE PORTMAN"
bill read the post. he became aroused. he thought a moment... "hmmmm. open-source natalie portman..."
bill jumped from his chair, his genitalia stimulated, his face red. he rushed down the hall and burst into the conference room. shocked, everyone looked up.
"we must be allowed to see the source of our competitors!" he screamed.
i like german girls. and nannies.
NOTE: I can't use the strike tag here, so stuff in square brackets was struck out by Microsoft:
.doc so that a linux filemanager can recognize them and add the appropriate icon. Aha! Interoperability! And if they make available a windows bitmap of an icon that can be used (subject to the appropriate licensing terms, of course)...that's just plain generous!
.doc), you want to write files a windows box can read? Save them as text-only. More interoperability. Look how well Microsoft shares toys in the sandbox!
"Technical Information" means all information regarding the identification and means of using APIs and Communications Interfaces that competent software developers require to make their products running on any computer interoperate [effectively] with Microsoft Platform Software running on a Personal Computer. [Technical information includes but is not limited to reference implementations, communications protocols, file formats, data formats, syntaxes and grammers, data structure definitions and layouts, error codes, memory allocation and deallocation conventions, threading and synchronization conventions, functional specifications and descriptions, algorithms for data translation or reformatting (including compression/decompression algorithms and encryption/decryption algorithms), registry settings, and field contents.]
I guess Microsoft didn't think they could avoid interoperating, they left it in. They just change the wording so they don't have to effectively interoperate. So: they tell people that word files end in
Unpublished APIs? What unpublished APIs? We don't officially use those anymore. You don't need them to interoperate. Ignore the fact that everyone uses them because that's what they were written for.
Now that you can read Word files (remember: they end in
Yech! Look at their revisions sometime. The stuff they took out, added, and re-worded is just sick. They claim the government's definitions of just about everything are too broad, so they narrow them, making them apply to just about nothing.
And just look at the big section of nixed stuff at the bottom. Despite complaining throughout the document of imprecisely defined terms, Microsoft objects to the precise definition of this term, and wants to scratch it all out. This is almost starting to sound familiar familiar familiar familiar...
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
One way to look at File Formats is that they are essentially APIs for non-volitile data storage.
In any event, in addition to open APIs we need open file and data storage formats. No more forcing people to standardize on sub-standard software (such as Word, for example) simply because other programs have a perceived difficulty reading or writing to the same file format.
In the free software community, a library of file format filters to which all programs which store text or data to disk link would be fantastic - then people could truly run the Word Processor, spread sheet, image editor, and presentation manager of their choice with complete confidence that others will be able to read and share their documents.
While the free software community can do much, at some point someone needs to step in and require, be it through customer pressure or outright legislation, that APIs and File Formats be both published and adhered to. I favor the former, but would take the latter over the current state of affairs.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
After yet again witnessing Microsoft's open and notorious giving of the finger to the DOJ, I've figured out Bill's strategy.
He wants out of the spotlight.
See, it's like this. Ever since Bill put Steve Ballmer in charge, he's been trying to loosen his ties to Microsoft more and more, so that he can pursue other ventures...biotech, aerospace, etc. But he's stuck running this damn Microsoft. He looks over to his friend and fellow billionaire Paul Allen, wishing that he too could own such cool things as the Portland Trailblazers. But alas, Gates is too conspicuous. Too famous. Too rich.
So the plan is, to REALLY piss off the Judge and make Microsoft stock drop like a bloody rock; and also to break Microsoft up into a bajillion little companies, each one stuck with one particular product (like Bob or Golf). And then Bill will own bits and pieces of all of these companies, but still be a minority shareholder in all of them. Most will die; some will live; and he'll be able to use the proceeds to start going into other ventures.
Gates Pharmacuticals? Gates competing with Boeing? The mind boggles and the Washington state government salivates at the thought of all those jobs, all that taxable money...
And Gates himself? He returns to a life of relative un-noticability. Much like his less affluent friend Paul.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Finding God in a Dog
I suppose you can't blame MS for trying. Like a condemed man shouting "But I'm innocent!!" on his way to the gallows.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
The point i'm trying to make is that, rather than bitch about how windows is a monopoly and begging the government to do something about it. Let's follow the examples of people like Linus, or organizations like GNOME. Time to stop complaining and just make something undeniably better. MS gets to stay intact, albeit smaller. The product that's the best wins...then we all win.
"Your post sucks! Microsoft doesn't play fair! Fuck you" you say. Sorry, but now you're talking about morality (i.e. - what responsability does a company have to the consumer, morally). Unfortunately, if you pull that card, you've already lost the argument. Microsoft didn't become the company it is today because it played "fair" and it certainly didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it sucked. Make something better! (retrospectively - thank you linus)
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Typical Defense of MS:
The Bottom Line:
What they have done is NOT illegal for most companies, but IS illegal for a monopoly. When you are a monopoly you must play by a different set of rules than everyone else in the industry. The Double Standard (tm) is NOT some anti M$ crusade. It IS the LAW. - A law that's been around a lot longer than Monsieur Gates has walked this planet.
Please, if you want to defend M$, whether you genuinally beleive their innocent or just enjoy playing devil's advocate, please, please come up with something more creative than "they did nothing wrong".
--Aaron Greenberg
Microsoft's "management, sales, products, and operations" are all tightly integrated, reflecting the fact that Microsoft is--and always has been--a unitary company.
From testimony in the trial:
"I will be honest with you," answered Schmalensee, an important witness for the company. "The state of Microsoft's internal accounting systems do not always rise to the level of sophistication one might expect from a firm as successful as it is."
When Boies pressed him, Schmalensee added: "They record operating system sales by hand on sheets of paper."
(source: zdnet)
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
ianal, and all that, so here are a few things that I couldn't figure out just by using google or yahoo:
What is the (legal) difference between the (legal) terms "Reorganization" and "Divestiture". How does that rewording change the document.
MS has the following item: "[1] April 27, 2000 is an arbitrary date. For simplicity and internal consistency (see, e.g., Section 4.a, infra), the operative date should be the Effective Date of the Final Judgment established in Section 6.a, infra."
Is that common legalese? It strikes me as more of a techie way of thought than legal (which has a different flavor of logic to it). I also like how they corrected the "typo".
Seems that they have extended every deadline by about a third again the court length (60 changed to 90 days, 90 to 150 days, etc.) is this legal 'haggling' over the figures common, or uncommon.
As for how I read it, they seem to be extending the dates, covering their asses (adding "Knowingly and willingly" so that they can wriggle out via "It wasn't company policy!" later), and making a few valid points, especially:
Microsoft shall not take or threaten any action adversely affecting any OEM (including but not limited to giving or withholding any consideration such as licensing terms; discounts; technical, marketing, and sales support; enabling programs; product information; technical information; --information-about-future-plans--; [1] developer tools or developer support; (Where "info about future plans is crossed out").
That makes sense. You want to cut the company down to managability and so they have to compete again, not gut them. At first I thought that disclosure to a arbatraitor or government agent might work, but then - what would they look for, and what would they do if they saw it.
I also agree with MS that it's a bit vague. Possibly intentionally so? Maybe so it can be reworked through appeals and survive rather than being thrown out because of one stickler point?
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
This is weird. First you claim that MS developed a product that was at least perceived as good in order to gain their monopoly. Then you say that because they did that in order to _get_ a monopoly, they must not be sitting pretty now that they have one.
MS is one of the most paranoid companies around. This would be good in virtually any other company - it keeps them healthy and active. Companies that get complacent do tend to stop innovating. The much famed Xerox PARC invented all kinds of amazing things that Xerox never capitalized on because they didn't see the point in a copier company selling an unrelated niche product like laser printers.
However, MS has carried this to an extreme. They've earned quite a reputation for attacking other companies with FUD; copying other people's developments rather than do original work and leapfrog them; in a few cases outright illegal activity (Stacker, anyone?) and anticompetitive practices. (threatening to raise prices if OEMs attempt to support MS competitors)
If MS were smaller, Dell could safely preinstall Linux on their machines no matter what MS thinks. But MS is a 500 pound gorilla, and can't be ignored. You'd have to be blind to think otherwise. This means that competition all throughout the industry is harmed. And competition is good for everyone, even if it may be bad for some people.
It's better to have that than to have many monopolies. (the only way to even attempt competiting with a big company, all else being equal, is to be just as big - which leads towards even more harmful monopolies, collusion, etc.) Not regulating them will result in just such a dismal future. We've come perilously close before back in the days when antitrust laws were first enacted. And there are always companies that try anyway.
But why should MS have to behave like any other business to sustain their monopoly? If two similar companies are competing in the marketplace their behavior is predictable; they'll try to out-do each other. MS can buy them out. Or order their customers not to do business with the upstart. Or spread enough FUD and imitations to harm their competitor's business.
None of this is because MS cares about the new business. They may indeed expand into it. But first and foremost they have to protect their existing monopolies. Then their goal will be to acquire new monopolies. A monopoly in operating systems was leveraged into a monopoly in office suites. OSes were leveraged in getting a monopoly in browsers (remember, Netscape claimed that applications that ran within the browser would be platform agnostic - as plain a threat to Windows as can be; all you would need is a machine that ran Netscape)
Sometimes (not always) MS acquires their new monopoly by introducing a product that really is better. But the law does not deal solely in actions, it also deals with intent. Any action that a monopoly takes is going to have to be carefully scrutinized because anti-competitve intent is impermissible as long as we want the economy to work for us. Supporting monopolies because they may have better products when they aggressively expand is being penny wise and pound foolish.
As for the morality issue, you're misinterpreting an analogy. I didn't say that monopolies or businesses were immoral. I will say that they're ammoral: they are non-human organizations. PEOPLE have morals. Companies are incapable of having morals.
Of course, _many_ religions and philosophies from around the world and different times find many business practices immoral. I personally think that the goals of businesses must be made subservient to the goals of moral people. It is unacceptable morally for a business to engage in behavior which is immoral. Is it okay for Nike to make shoes in sweatshops? Only if money is more important than human beings. I have real problems accepting that idea. But these are the kinds of paths that averice leads to.
At any rate what I was actually attempting to illustrate, though you didn't realize it, was that the poison can sometimes be found in the dose.
Algae that takes advantage of ultra-favorable conditions causes red tides that kill off huge amounts of other life. Cancer is the uncontrolled reproduction of cells to the point where it is deadly to the organism afflicted with it. Total freedom in human beings leads to an anarchy that is terrible to experience.
Why would a business with too much power be any different? Particularly when the germane goal of society is not successful businesses but the opportunity for successful businesses. Monopolies eradicate such opportunities, as has been shown again and again and again. While the MS case is breaking new ground in some places, it's generally the same old tune.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
In connection with any disclosure of APIs, Communications Interfaces or Technical Information required under this provision, Microsoft may require the persons to whom such disclosures are made to:
i. pay a reasonable royalty to Microsoft for use of its intellectual property; [7]
Bites!
ii. disclose to Microsoft any APIs or Communication Interfaces that such persons have implemented in their products to permit them to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software; [8] and
How about everyone disclosing their APIs?
iii. allow qualified representatives of Microsoft to inspect the source code for such persons' products in a secure facility for the sole purpose of ensuring their compliance with the requirement that Microsoft's source code be used only to enable third-party products to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software. [9]
I don't think so.
BS - we really should encourage OpenAPIs - what MS has done with Kerberos and doing with SOAP is BAD for ALL.
If MS wants to make suggestions that will be taken seriously, may the lawyers should base suggestions on negative effects to people outside MS. Arguing that losing the right to make pricing deals with OEMs will result in higher prices for consumers is more effective that just saying how unfair it is.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
"We can admit that we've been wrong," a spokesman for Microsoft said. "And it's time we corrected our mistakes. So, beginning today, we will release all of our software under the MGPL."
"Of course, there have been some changes," the spokesman continued. For one, the "click-wrap" license says that, by agreeing to it, the user agrees that all source code written by the user, upon any computer, using any operating system, shall be immediately emailed to Microsoft.
The license goes on to say that its terms "shall be utterly binding, without recourse, upon all entities, whether living or dead, everywhere, forever", and that the user "shall enforce the terms of this license, as a member of Microsoft's unholy Army of Terror."
The spokesman said Microsoft anticipated a positive response from the government. "And I think the public will be quite happy to help Microsoft defend its right to innovate -- after all, they will have the most important role."
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and writer of the original GPL, could not be reached for comment. An anonymous source at the FSF said that Stallman was "running for the hills."
Carousel is a lie!
They also wouldn't pleas Microsoft and wouldn't satisfy the "hang them high" crowd. Here they are. Very simple and with details that can be worked out latter.
1. Volume Pricing. Simply put they can't sell to the goy buying 1,000,000 units for less than they sell to the goy buying 2,000,000 units.
2. For each program they produce which generates document files or communicates across the network they must produce a simple file viewer or packet catcher ( where appropriate ) that is 100% compatible. No bells or whistles at all required. The catch is that this viewer must be under a BSD license and come with the full source code.
3. At Microsoft's own discretion they can use an IETF owned format instead of following #2 above. When they do it this way the I*ETF must approve the compatibility of each release.
Note that MS may interchange 2 and 3 at it's own discretion but not ignore them both. #1 is not optional however. They would of course need a whole new set of arguments to combat these remedies. After all they have no impact on what MS claims it wants aside from posibly increasing development costs a little.
For the user it would solve all the choice issues in one fell swoop.
PS: Too bad the Judge in this case won't ever here or care about this sort of thing.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
The point isn't that Microsoft integrated IE into the OS. Nor is it that Microsoft is a monopoly.
Both of these are ok.
The problem is what Microsoft did with its monopoly power, of which integrating IE is just one example.
Microsoft didn't integrate IE because they thought it would benefit users. They did it to lock Netscape and any other browser out of the market, Why, because Microsoft saw the browser as a new platform that could make the OS superfluous.
As I said this is just one example of Microsofts behavior, aka extend and embrace. And that (along with an incompetent legal team) is why the DOJ is looking to break them up.
Steve M
In fact, the original recommendation by the government does, indeed, demand that Microsoft open the source. Not as in open source writ large, but certainly to a large number of developers.
In other words, give all developers the same level of access to documentation of the system API as you give Microsoft employees. The document goes on to add that developers must be using the code strictly for the purpose of developing programs to run on that platform, rather than to use it in a product which would compete with the OS.
Microsoft, as you might have guessed, wasn't real pleased with this, and they added their own language, including the right to charge a royalty to see that code, plus the right to inspect whatever the developer produces, "for the sole purpose of ensuring their compliance with the requirement that Microsoft's source code be used only to enable third-party products to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software.".
Shady. On the one hand, the language of the document essentially demands that they set up a "secure facility" for the purpose of showing people this code. That's mucho bucks, which might justify them charging a royalty fee. And, since the opening of the code is supposed to be for the purpose of developing software on the platform, I can see why they'd want some kind of enforcement policy (the "we get to see the code" part). But in all other respects, very very shady.
As far as monopolistic business practices otherwise. Would you step to the front of the room please if you would have done any different (open source developers, you don't count because you're not entirely greedy :P ) The point is that M$ followed valid business practices.
That is besides the point of antitrust law.
In antitrust law, a fundamental tenet is that you cannot take actions that hurt consumers in order to hurt your competition more. M$ dumped billions on IE for no profit and no benefit for consumers - in order to hurt netscape. M$ made consumers pay more for Windows on IBM machines to hurt IBM, who at the time maintained the right to sell OS/2. M$ threatened to withdraw M$ Office for Macintosh unless Apple got on board and preloaded IE - expediting the killing of netscape. M$ strongarmed all the OEM outlets for netscape in order to cut off netscape's air supply - and remove choice from the consumer who was less likely to download and install netscape.
The list of violations goes on and on. M$ made consumers pay so that it could eradicate the competition in browser space. That is what antitrust is about.
Standard Oil used to put up gas stations across the street from existing gas stations and sell gas at a loss until the competition went out of business - then the maximal possible prices were extracted. That is the sort of violation antitrust law seeks to stop. M$ was horribly in violation - and separating the monopoly with leverage (Windows) from the products with competition (all apps and the internet business) is appropriate and fair.