[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

Except for the little fact, you know, they broke the law. Ooops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

But hey, what's such a little thing such as an illegal monopoly in the face of history?

Time travel doesn't exist but I wish people could go back in time and experience the anarchy and the phenomenal costs that existed in computing and communications during that era.

The fact that anyone could set a standard and make it stick has had enormous economic benefits for the world in terms of increasing efficiency and driving down costs. You could occupy a programmer for days just to move a file from one computer to another with thousands of dollars worth of hardware. Now you can just email it.

A lot of people were glad to see the standards.

I most certainly do not want to retry the case here but it was probably inevitable that Microsoft would wind up in this position given the momentum they had and the willingness of the marketplace to reward their efforts.