Word: microsoft
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...what does all this mean for consumers? The decision could lead Microsoft to make last-minute changes in the XP operating system, the latest version of the Windows software that runs nearly 95% of all PCs. Just before the ruling came down, Gates & Co. said they were removing Smart Tags, a controversial feature of the new software. Smart Tags turn words on websites into links to Microsoft-approved sites. Critics charge they are Microsoft's attempt to use its browser market dominance to drive traffic to its own sites. If Microsoft is worried about the ruling, it might modify other...
...Microsoft camp insists consumers will benefit for the opposite reason--because the ruling frees Microsoft, and hence the rest of the technology industry, to innovate and improve products without government meddling. The company has several new initiatives teed up, including Passport, a kind of Web-shopping manager, and Hailstorm, a subscription-based e-mail-alert Web service. One of Microsoft's main offenses in the antitrust case, the company points out, was giving away the Internet Explorer with Windows. "There weren't a lot of complaints from customers that they were getting a browser for free," says Jonathan Zuck, executive...
Aside from what happens in the government's case, last week's decision delivered a separate blow to Microsoft. The ruling that Microsoft is a monopoly could open the floodgates to civil suits by companies, and even consumers, who have been harmed by Microsoft's anticompetitive activities. Proving that a company is a monopoly is an onerous legal task, and private litigants may now be able to bootstrap their cases onto last week's findings...
...company that could be first in line: AOL Time Warner, the parent company of TIME. In recent talks about renewing AOL's spot on Windows XP, Microsoft sought indemnity from future antitrust claims. AOL refused, and the deal died. AOL might sue, claiming that Netscape, the Internet browser it now owns, was harmed by Microsoft's monopolistic behavior. Estimates of potential damage are in the billions of dollars. Other companies that could sue: Microsoft-loathing Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks and Oracle...
...though, Microsoft is basking in the sunlight of what it regards as a clear-cut victory. Microsoft, whose Redmond, Wash., campus is just outside Seattle, may be right in saying Seattleites have a special ability to appreciate the sun breaking through the clouds. But residents of that rainy burg know that sunshine is sometimes just a break between cloudy days...