Ruling doesn't open Microsoft to competition
Your comments related to the Microsoft case leave me with the impression that you either haven't spent time reading the ruling or didn't understand it. Even a quick reading [of the ruling] shows an amazing lack of understanding of the dynamics of competition in the IT industry. The structure that the judge puts in place to oversee Microsoft's activities will provide protection only for Microsoft's activities against competition for the foreseeable future. In no way does anything she ruled open up Microsoft to any real competition.
Take, for example, the quick dismissal of all evidence save one minor point of the other states' case. There is a correlation between eliminating competition and being able to practice monopoly-pricing policies (even if one waits until all the competition is eliminated before practicing it).
Obviously the six months of "deliberation" took none of this into consideration. I am sure there are other cases of companies doing the same thing in the U.S. It is hard to imagine that the judge weighed any of this since Microsoft's current pricing policies on Windows and Microsoft Office clearly show these tendencies. If she deliberated at all is a point of debate.
John Thurston Boyd
Cascais, Portugal