Hi, An article in the Globe and Mail (a national paper in Canada) entitled "Microsoft threatens to withdraw Windows" has a few interesting points.
Among them, (according to Steve Ballmer) Microsoft would have to discontinue selling its Windows operating system and instead put thousands of versions of the software on the market to satisfy the demands of the nine states pursuing further action against MS. Here's a brief tidbit: --- In his Feb. 8 deposition, Mr. Ballmer said it would be impossible to get the operating system to run properly and still meet the states's demands. "That's the way good software gets designed. So if you pull out a piece it won't run," Mr. Ballmer said. --- Umm, don't tell the Mozilla developers :-) And to show that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing... --- In another deposition released on Monday, Jim Allchin, the Microsoft vice president in charge of Windows development, conceded the company was working on so-called embedded versions of Windows that "componentize" the operating system, or break it into pieces that customers can mix and match to suit their needs. --- Either way, it doesn't appear to imply that this will affect the OS delivered onto consumer desktops, but rather the OS that'll run other devices. Consumers will still be saddled with components they don't want. It appears at least one person has a grasp of what's going on though: --- Instead, the company would have to sell just one "modular" Windows version from which software features ? such as Internet browsers, media players and instant messengers ? could be removed, said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "The modified measures should deflate Microsoft's overblown rhetoric and apocalyptic predictions about the proposed remedies," Mr. Blumenthal said. --- BTW: here's the link to the story (yeah, it's ugly): http://rtnews.globetechnology.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D,B/20020305/gtmsms?tf=tgam%252Frealtime%252Ffullstory_Tech.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=gtmsms&date=20020305&archive=RTGAM&site=Technology -- perlhack
