It's not even close to that, or that simple. Comes v. Microsoft was really about lawyers in Iowa, who did not get a cut in the larger suit against Microsoft leveraging the ABTE - applications barrier to entry. This clever bit of legal language doesn't even look at Microsoft software, but at software that can run on versions of Windows. It is to say that if a piece of software that can run on Windows failed in the market, for any reason, it was Microsoft's fault.
Quite a stretch, which asserts that the nature of Windows itself, is why some applications do not perform well, commercially. Insane - think about it... a program written for Windows fails commercially, because it was written for Windows.... and if there were no Windows and Windows were not the most used operating system available, whould the software have been written for it? That's an obvious question. The ABTE was invented by lawyers, for lawyers - not the people.
In the end though, the decision comes down to this: "Microsoft, you have money and we don't have as much money as we want - so we're going to figure out a way to take yours and we're going to say that it's for the people and in their name, we're going to make you less wealthy and if we can, less successful." So some lawyers in Iowa will get new houses, or at least that kitchen re-model, or complete rennovations to their lake house - think I'm kidding... in the legal space, legal professionals borrow from banks based upon the "take" a case is likely to garner... they finance their practices this way. The specialized accounting firms working alongside them do the same thing - and these guys live really well. They exist in every city in America and they all operate the same way.
For guys like us - it's a fine dance we have to step. Guys like this will influence a lot of what business we do. On the business side, one has to be careful, but still hold one's own influence over them and those around them.
Just know that there is a lot less to this than the lawyers in the fine state of Iowa would have one believe - it's all about money - someone else's money and it wasn't intended for the people. Fortunately, it looks like the settlement is in part, being structured to actually try and do something decent - after of course, the lawyers get their cut.
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