Paul Thurrott has posted an interesting article on the agreement Microsoft and the DOJ have reached. Here is a snippet from his article:

"Before I review the settlement, however, I'd like to present some background information. As a technical reporter who has covered Microsoft professionally for more than half a decade, I've had a difficult time understanding the company. Microsoft is full of intelligent, enthusiastic, and driven people, many of whom literally believe that they can change the world through the company's products. It's a paradox to me that the people who make up Microsoft are responsible for one of the most predatory entities that has ever entered the world economy. Furthermore, Microsoft is responsible for some of the most unreliable and buggy technology ever foisted on consumers, and Microsoft has prevented other companies with more elegant technology from being successful again and again over the course of its 25-year history. Some of its products--Windows 2000 and Windows XP, for example--are world-class, however. It's difficult to reconcile the actions of the predatory corporate giant with the people I know at Microsoft and the occasionally excellent products the company makes. In the end, of course, it doesn't matter how any of us feel about the company. The historical record will show that the courts found Microsoft guilty of illegally gaining and maintaining a monopoly for PC OSs. The government presented a lot of evidence in court to bolster this argument, and I'd add that far more evidence is available to back it up even further. A fact's a fact: Microsoft dominates the industry."