> > Microsoft won't even notice a fine. They probably look on
> that as the best
> > outcome of the case. And while breaking them up would help
> the dominance of
> > one company in all fields, it would only create dominance
> of lots of related
> > companies. People will still use Windows, still use
> Office, etc etc because
> > that's what they already have, that's what people are
> trained in, and
> > practically everyone else uses it too.
>
> No - but what they DID notice was the almost 15% drop in the value of
> their shares - you can bet Bill noticed the 10 BILLION
> dollars it whiped off his personal net worth.
Just a drop in his ocean, I suspect.... :)
> The decision can only be good for the open source industry -
> if nothing
> else, as someone else pointed out, Linux and BSD can keep
> growing without
> worrying about being taken over/blasted out of existance
> while Microsoft
> sorts out its legal hassles.
It will be good, but I don't think it's enough for Linux to break into the
desktop market in a big way, for the reasons I said before. It's undeniable
that the court case has started to make people realise the stranglehold MS
has over the OS and application markets, and people are starting to notice
other OSs.
Andrew.
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux Users Group Mailing List - http://www.slug.org.au
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe in the text
