From the Dark Side--Split Microsoft

into two companies is the remedy jointly proposed by the Justice Department and 19 states late yesterday in Microsoft's antitrust trial. One company would get the Windows operating system and the other would get the other Microsoft software. While this remedy was widely expected, it falls short of what a group of economists recommended to the court in this CNet article, i.e. make three competing Windows companies and a fourth other software company. [Dana Baggett] Unfortunately, it appears that the governments' proposal would also keep the OS and server software together permitting the ongoing Windows NT server leveraged exclusion of non-Windows operating systems in the enterprise market to continue unabated. Here is the text of the governments' 17-page proposal. Microsoft is to reply by May 10th but may ask for an extension. Here is Vote.Com's poll on the subject--it was running 90 per cent against the split out of about 10,000 votes cast at publication time. [Bob Patterson]

-- TGIF, Apr. 28 --