COMMENTARY--Let me get this straight. Ralph Nader (news - web sites) -- former presidential candidate (and close friend of Al Gore (news - web sites)), consumer crusader and political activist -- believes the way to bring Bill Gates (news - web sites) to his knees is for President Bush (news - web sites), in the guise of the Office of Management and Budget, to mandate that the government limit its purchases of Microsoft products.

In other words, spread the dollars around to Apple, IBM, Corel, Linux (news - web sites) firms and other manufacturers to encourage competition and get better pricing. Or as Nader himself told Reuters, "The only consumer in North America who can break up the Microsoft monopoly simply through purchasing strategies is the U.S. government."

In a letter addressed to Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., Director of the OMB, Nader also suggests other remedies, like having the government "consider a cost benefit analysis to determine whether dominant software providers should make their source code public, in order to enhance interoperability with products offered by smaller competitors." Or, he said, the U.S. government should consider compelling Microsoft to port its Office suite to competing platforms.