Although Microsoft has been judged to be a monopoly, that really doesn't mean much right now. The Justice Department still has to prove that Microsoft is an illegal monopoly. And then you can do drastic actions like forcing it to break up into a slew of small companies. I do believe that it is an illegal monopoly, and in that case drastic action should be taken.

I don't mind too much if Microsoft is this mega-company and its operating system and products control their marketplace. People and organizations are free to choose the software that they run on their systems, no matter how much I may think that it is an unfortunate choice. What bothers me is the way Microsoft has established its dominance.

Microsoft forces manufacturers to get the OEM version of Windows for all machines they make, whether or not they sell the machine with Windows. They've used their operating system to break other applications that compete with theirs. They're quite good at undercutting competitors by relying on their OS and Office sales.

Other companies do some of the same things. That's still illegal, although quite hard to enforce. What differentiates Microsoft is that the scope in which they employ these tactics and many others. Once you get to that point then there's a chance to enforce it, and so we arrive at this juncture.

Do I support splitting up Microsoft? Yes. Turning the company into a dozen little companies would probably help them all in the long run. What you want is to promote competition. A little company has less leverage to engage in monopolistic practices, so therefore it becomes safe and you don't have to monitor it until it once again dominates the marketplace. But to do that they have to beat all the competitors again.

Microsoft has some great developers and some really good products. They could have achieved their current dominant position based on the strength of their offerings alone. But it would have been much less likely that most of their competition be crushed. Microsoft also has some really bad products which have survived because they don't have to survive on their own. Dominance with those products is bad for the industry.

There are a huge number of people who hate Microsoft just because of who they are. They have market dominance and they've done many scummy things. And I used to be that way. But I'm too tired to really care anymore. I don't use Microsoft products because there are better products out there. When I use Microsoft products, it's because its the only alternative.

For me, I won't use Microsoft products if I can help it. I'm no longer in the camp that for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose. I just don't want them to be so anti-competitive. And I still think that they should be broken up, because they have to be punished for being an illegal monopoly. It's both a punishment and a way to reopen up the marketplace, which is good for everyone. Even a successful "legal" monopoly would have to be broken up to bring more competition, which is a founding basis for Capitalism.