Thanks, Louis The 1998 Microsoft antitrust case seems finally settled, but it is hard to be completely sure about private suits, the states and the European Union. One reason we cannot be entirely certain this foolishness is over is that the Appeals Court judges never took a close enough look at the original "findings of fact," particularly the abuse of market share figures to prove monopoly. Since that label stuck, it still invites legal harassment.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's endlessly repeated claim that 95 percent of the world's computers run on Windows, for example, required pretending that Apple, Sun Microsystems and Palm do not compete with Windows because their computers are not "Intel compatible." That is like saying Campbell's has 95 percent of the soup business if we just leave out Progresso because their soup styles are Italian, Healthy Choice because their soup is dietary, and all other soups because they are dry mixes, imported or frozen.
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