>>I was sitting out on my patio last night, having a couple of cold ones, and a thought occurred to me. This isn't terribly unusual, however, the normal course is for me to totally discard it the next day. This is the exception.
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>>I was considering the "remedy" that the DOJ is going to try to impose on Microsoft. For the sake of completeness here, let's review:
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>< snip >
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>George et al., IMHO the DOJ has the wrong end of the problem. Anyone who truly builds a better mousetrap should be able to reap the rewards. And anyone who doesn't think that MS' ability to link Word, Excel, WSH, VFP etc. etc. isn't a better mousetrap wasn't around when every PC had a slightly different DOS (MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, CompaqDOS, EagleDOS) and a different way of formatting floppy disks. This is equivalent to your car only being able to use gasoline from one supplier. If your local BrandBuick gas station was out of gas or too expensive you couldn't go to the BrandNissan down the street.
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>Now that is NOT the same thing as using clout to stifle competition. Where I think DOJ has a case is with the way MS forced computer sellers to license and install only MS software, thus damaging Netscape, Sun/Java etc. This is the area (again, IMO) where DOJ should make their changes. This may be their intended approach: Separate out the OS section, and Dell/Gateway/etc. will be able to negotiate with MS-OS for a good deal on installing Win2000 on new computers without their being any pressure to install IE/Word/etc.
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>Unfortunately I'm a firm believer that almost every businessman will use as much inside information as he can get. If people used snail mail instead of email and shredded the mail after reading (as well as deleting the original docs after printing, of course) there could be a lot of collusion without much of a record. If they made their deals while walking through the local park, there'd be even less.
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>On a slightly different note, I was listening to NPR and heard a lawyer who had worked on the AT&T/Baby Bell breakup. She said the ONLY reason it worked is because AT&T cooperated and actually broke themselves into pieces. Her opinion was that MS will be bigger than ever in 10 years.
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>< steps off soapbox >

Barbara,

I've no problem with the argument you present. My problem is that the remedy isn't appropriate. You're cost of doing business will go up. You'll pass this on. The quality of your information (since it will come from different sources) is likely to decline. This is good? Nope?

As someone who worked for a company that was affected by the AT&T breakup, I feel I can say that the person or company that will be hurt the most by the this is the small, independent. The company (a small one) that I worked for went out of business in 1986 because of the AT&T breakup. We produced hardware for AT&T. Instead of having one contact in a nearby location (Research Triangle Park, NC) we had to deal nation wide with a number of companies. As a result, I ended up out of job as the company closed.