USA Today: What if Microsoft hadn’t been a bully?

[ Thanks to George
Mitchell for this link. ]

“More open standards would have jump-started computer engineers
and high-tech executives and encouraged them to design and sell an
astonishing array of desktop products.”

“When you have open standards, you don’t fear one vendor,” says
Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry
Association in Washington. “You don’t have to buy all of your
products from one company….”

“The Internet-based Linux operating system, a boon to
computer users and perhaps the biggest threat to Microsoft since
Netscape’s browser, also probably would have launched earlier.
“There was a whole revolution waiting to happen, and theoretically,
it could have occurred years earlier,” says Andrew Gavil, an
antitrust professor at Howard University School of Law in
Washington.”

Complete
Story