What does everybody think about the Microsoft trial, I personally think that the holdout states are the only intelligent ones. For example, Microsoft has to put 1000's of computers in schools (what os will be on them you ask? Hmm, maybe, WINDOWS?) I think this is crap, I think a real penalty is microsoft giving billions away to companies they have hurt, like Real, Netscape (now part of AOL), etc. What do you all think?

i dont think microsoft should have to do anything. in my view they did the right thing. I still dont think theyre a monopoly, just because other companies cant hack it, dont blame them. So what if they tried to knock off competitors, if we had competitors itll be hell for the world. Imagine going to your Circuit city or so and go look for a computer and being told that oh this software wont work with this one and this software will work with this OS. Thatll drive people from buying PCs. I wouldnt buy a comp if it was that complicated either. I would like to be confident that when i go to the comp store that when i buy my game that ill work on my comp. If anything REAL, NETSCAPE, AOL should be the ones givin money to MS!! If it werent for MS all those other companies would be nothing and they wouldnt be millionaires and all.

Exactly. MS is just doing what any company would do if they had a chance. As Darwin's "survival of the fittest."

Well ask your self this:

In 1994 Netscape aka Mozilla was the dogs balls of browsers... Microsoft said we arent interested in the Net its just a fad it will die down.

Bill gates does a U-Turn 2 years later.. and now IE has a large share of the browser market.

They would never have succeeded if they didnt not budle it for free with the OS. You telling me that isnt the work of a monopoly?
The thing with OS is they allow you to maintain monopoloys.

I agree with Kila_m, and vyse, you haven't followed this issue too much have you. It's not that other companies can't hack it, but when you bought your computer (or loaded windows) look at what was there, IE, Windows Media Player, MSN, maybe, maybe, AOL. And who says netscape, AOL, and Real would be dead if it wasn't for microsoft. (Almost) no matter what os you use you can get Realplayer, you can get Netscape on pretty much any computer. Another thing, how did AOL manage to get on the windows desktop? Microsoft said, if you want to be on the desktop, you must use IE in your program. That is restraint of trade. There is **no** way to get around that. What happened when dell started using more linux? Microsoft got all pi**ed at them, and threated to not sell them windows if they wouldn't drop linux to a much much lower level.

ok ok, you got a point
but heres where they can do something different. What kila_m said was true about MS sayin that the internet was a fad, but how could you trust MS, you know they would be hidin their true intentions inside. So it was Netscape fault that they cant be as successful as MS. If its MS's OS wants to bundle IE then they should be able to since its theirs, whose stopping them from people going to go online and just DLing Netscape? WOW i can do it in two clicks, believe me if Netscape was good then people would do anything in order to get it. As for their success, ok lets think back, if people never felt secure about computers and never go out to buy computers as much as today, who would even care about AOL or Real or Netscape. They owe it to MS because they made the industry safe and secure for people to go and purchase a PC and so that people can use their software. God, if i had to ever buy a software and it doesnt work on my comp that would piss me off. It might just be greedy on MS's part but who isnt in this business market.