A lesson for Bill Gates

Bill Gates has been taught a golden rule of American capitalism: Never underestimate the majesty of the antitrust laws or the sheer power of the populist sentiment on which they are based.

The United States is a nation where, when put to the test, the rights of the individual or the smaller entrepreneurial enterprise will always be held higher than brute corporate strength.

Thus a century which began with the anti-trust authorities moving against John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil of New Jersey, which controlled more than 90 percent of the world's oil production, ends with the state scoring a victory over Microsoft, the outstanding and most successful corporation of the late 20th century. The names and industries are different but the values which led federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to find Gates and Microsoft guilty of being a relentless and predatory monopoly are immutable.

This is a case that Gates fumbled. There have been chances throughout for Microsoft to settle. The U.S. is the home of the plea bargain and the out-of-court settlement. But Microsoft felt it could walk on water and turned aside all such offers.

-- The Guardian, London