>Ahh, but we have a precedence to look at. Look at all the Baby Bells. No way do they share information freely; they are too busy trying to cut each others throats were their markets intersect.

Well, if they break MS in 5 companies that do exactly the same, yes, we're going to end up with Windows 2000 East and Windows 2000 West, etc. and they will probably compete somehow for market share. Remember, all the bells sell exactly the same product.

In the case of MS my understanding is that the breakup would be simmilar to their current divisional line-up. They don't compete with each other. I see it as no more than a gov. move to utterly annoy mr. gates and give the plaintiffs a victory to chew on (albeit quite a moot one).

And BTW, Hell Atlantic and Nynex merged not too long ago...

I personally find all these monopoly laws somewhat dumb. Yes, we have now a few thousand phone companies in the US, but guess what. The actual infrastructure (cables, transmission links, etc.) belong to a handful (att, mci, cable&wireless, etc.) who in turn sell in bulk to these smaller "companies". The phone industry is unbelivably twisted.

When you look at it this way, all you really have is a bunch of resellers, not competition. The big bucks still end up in the same pockets.

alex