my understanding of the current MS debate is not flawless-- it's got a lot of minutia that's hard to follow. however: what TCM fails to mention is a basic point: MS signed an agreement a few years ago or whatever that they would not bundle their browser with their OS, win95. now MS is having second thoughts, and trying to weasel out of the contract by setting up a system in which the consumer is supposedly requesting the browser integration via the licensing agreement. the Justice department is doing nothing but enforcing a contract that MS itself signed. it seems pretty clear that MS is breaching its own contract. whether that contract was signed under duress, or the Justice dept is unfairly targeting MS, are valid questions but not wholly relevant to the current debate. if MS felt it was being persecuted it should have mounted that defense before it signed the contract on its own volition. personally, I have said before: I think Gates is finding that in todays business world, cooperation is as important as competition. the new climate has been described as "co-operatition" and other words. Gates has made many enemies in his megalomaniacal rise to power. make no mistake-- if you read books that discuss the behind-the-scenes, under-the-rock, behind-the-superficial-pr atmosphere of the company, the unmistakable conclusion is that Gates is something of a tyrant bent on world software domination. he has very few friends, and those that he might think are his friends are really just sycophants who are afraid of him. capitalism involves many freedoms. one of those freedoms involves doing business with companies that one prefers, not necessarily for rational reasons. i.e. if people begin to hate MS and abandon their products even if they are superior and priced better, that's within the system to do so. I personally think this is increasingly happening. there are also a lot of stories that Gates has stabbed companies in the back in deals in which he is supposedly "cooperating" or having "strategic alliances" with. this is way beyond the initial IBM thing. these rumors, which probably have some grounding in reality, will make his business more difficult and have already done so. in particular, Bill's inability to cooperate is evidenced in the company's clear-cut strategy of trying to undermine Java. what's interesting is that his company could just as easily make lots of money by embracing the standard, even without owning it themselves. there's a lot of bitterness being generated by their veiled opposition to it. programmers are far from stupid. Bill doesn't realize how few real friends he really has. he has made the mistake of thinking that business and cooperation are mutually exclusive. he'll pay the price.