From the Dark Side--Proposed Microsoft Antitrust Remedy

will be filed today by the Justice Department and States. According to USA Today there will be just one principal proposal. Rumors have circulated in the print media this week that the proposal will be to divide Microsoft into two companies, a Windows OS company and an all-the-rest company. This appears to me to be the minimum necessary to promote more competition in the PC software market as it will help reduce the monopoly leverage illegally exercised by Microsoft as was documented by Judge Jackson's findings. However, I am hoping that there are at least two identical competing Windows OS companies formed instead of one, that the Windows server software is separated from the client software into the third non-OS company and that all companies in the short term will be supervised under court order to minimize collusion. [Dana Baggett]