Microsoft gave in during Round 2 of its trial according to NEWS.COM.

The Justice Department and MS agreed to a settlement where MS will either just remove the Internet Explorer icon from the Windows 95 desktop or allow OEMs to use the Add/Remove application to "remove" IE. Justice got what it won in Round 1 and MS got about 60 days of acting like a recalcitrant child before capitulating. So what about the fine? Well, this bring them back to the original "tying" issue and whether Microsoft as a monopoly violated a non-tying consent decree reached in 1995. What if Microsoft decided everything should be integrated into Windows XX? Isn't that the ultimate office suite bundle ploy that I mentioned 1/19 for Word? OS and applications all-in-one for some 80-90% of all PC's.

Don Crabb has a new article on MacCentral about the crux of the Microsoft trial. Glad to see that Don agrees with my 1/19 article.

To combat Microsoft, Netscape announced yesterday that it will give away the Navigator standard edition free and make the source code of Communicator 5.0 publicly available. It must be real fun when a competitor "gives" away its products or when someone offers to do your job for free.