“…even if Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT) were to succeed in
getting Jackson’s final decree overturned, it faces a clouded
future. Market forces are leveling the playing field in the
software industry and in the process reducing the dominance of
Windows. When the landmark antitrust trial began in the fall of
1998, Linux was a novelty, the PalmPilot was just starting to
assert itself and nobody was trading stocks while driving to
work.”
“Today, Microsoft is scrambling to find its place in a
connected world. Meanwhile, companies like Sun Microsystems
(nasdaq: SUNW) and Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL), both longtime rivals of
Microsoft, are taking to the new water like fishes.”
“Microsoft has been badly damaged by a year and a half under the
legal spotlight. Its intimidating tactics have been exposed, and
competitors who once would rather have cut out their tongues than
rat on Bill Gates have been eager to tell their stories about how
the evil empire forced them to use Internet Explorer and to snub
Netscape.”