Have you heard, or do you expect to hear, any arguments that will sway your opinion one way or the other. Haven't all the arguments already been made.

I have heard several arguments from other developers describing how they were hurt by MS actions. However, in the majority of cases, further research has shown that other developers made severe errors in judgement in terms of development or marketing that was the real cause of their problems.

Netscape is a prime example. Yes they were hurt by MS tying IE into Windows. But further evaluation shows how Netscape made major blunders along the way. There was a .plan file issued by someone from Netscape about a year or so ago describing the authors frustrations in working with their open source initiative. Also, as you are well aware, Netscape if far behind IE in several areas.

I haven't done enough Java developement to make an evaluation. However, from what I've heard and read, Java has not become the end-all/be-all as was originally touted, because of the way Sun has handled enhancing the product.

It is frustrating to me to see companies seek relief in courts, instead of looking within, to see what they could do better. It still appears to me that MS has done things correctly in several areas, while the competition made errors in the course of their doing business.

IBM is a prime example. I read an indepth study of IBM written by a WSJ columnist. It's been a while since I read it. But I recall 2 major, major blunders that put IBM behind the 8ball, to stay. One was laser printers. When Canon first developed their personal laser printer engine, they went knocking on doors to get people to license it and build printers. IBM refused to even look at it. Their engineers claimed that the mirrors on their mainframe laser printers cost more than the whole Cannon engine. The engineers couldn't believe anyone could develop an engine that cost the price of the Canon. The other blunder was IBM required the 286 to be the minimum system requirements for OS/2.

On the other hand, MS not allowing DR-DOS to work under windows should be severely penalized. However, breaking the company up would not prevent situations like this from reoccuring.

Why should MS be penalized in court because they made correct decisions along the way, when the competition seemed to implode along the way.

PF

>As a developer, the close relationship between the folks that create the OS and the apps/app tools is great. However, this is only 1 side - and a very biased side at that - of an extremely many sided argument. I could think of 10 reasons why it is all good. Then again, I could think of 10 reasons why it could be potentially harmful - if not now - sometime in the future.
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>It is a complex issue. And for me, the jury is still out (no pun intended) on where all the chips fall on this issue.