>George,
>
>>I was sitting out on my patio last night, having a couple of cold ones, and a thought occurred to me.
>
>I thought I heard a strange noise coming from the direction of Cartersville. (Sorry, I couldn't resist) :-)

Naw, that was my anguish over Cartersville High losing the second game of a doubleheader in the Class AA state baseball championship tournament. The won 20 in a row, then lost two (sob!). Oh well, two state championships in one school year may have been too much to hope for.
>
>>The DOJ wants to break MS into two pieces. Simplisticly, it's Windows/IE in one part; and Visual Studio, Office and so on in another.
>
>Correction: Windows/(IE licensed from the App side and feature-dependent on the App side -- can't make changes to it on the Windows side) in one part; ...
>

My bad! Still, the arguement that I presented is unaffected.

>>Further they seek to keep these two entities separate, and unable to work with each other for ten years.
>
>They can't merge for 10 years, but are they really prohibited from "working together", making contracts and strategic alliances with each other, etc?

I think so. At least that's my understanding of it. I really can't say here. I haven't done anything but read what's in the papers.

>>I do feel better, however, about this. First, because I've gotten it off my chest. Second, because, as flawed sometimes as the American judicial system can be, I can't see this decision not being over turned on appeal.
>
>I agree that the breakup proposal is reaching too far, and will probably be overturned on appeal. What bothers me is that the judge can order immediate restrictions on how MS runs their business and develops their products, which will remain in place during the appeal process. That's where the real problems are likely to come.

We agree on this. The DOJ, and more so the 19 states, are completely barking up the wrong tree here.