The Microsoft court judgment

Nobody is above the law, not even the conquistadors of the new economy, who like Bill Gates are building empires in the new (cyber) world where the economic rules and laws of the old world are no longer relevant.

There were very few who thought that Gates and his electronic corporation would experience the kind of thing that happened a century ago with Rockefeller and Standard Oil: to be pilloried because of the Sherman Act (the antitrust law). Judge Jackson's verdict will certainly not seal the breakup of Microsoft, and the legal-industrial saga will continue with plenty of drama.

However, Microsoft will have to go into the next battle with the government from a position of weakness. If there is a guilty verdict, it will open the door to a wave of charges of excessive pricing, the same kind as the ones which have been sapping the strength of the tobacco and arms industries for years.

-- Liberation, Paris