[The following is a response to the remedies proposed by Lewis A. Mettler]

I agree that Microsoft has to be broken up.

However, I don't exactly agree with your definition of the breakup points.

1.      You stated: "All networking technology should be put into a separate company and split off.".

                My opinion: I disagree with this entirely. At this point in time, networking is built into too many operating systems, for example  IBM (with OS/2, VMS, MVS, TSO, etc.), and all "flavors" of Unix (i.e. Unix, Solaris, Linux, etc.) to remove the networking technology that they have built into their respective operating systems. Your suggestion to break off this piece is quite ludicrous, since the network communication is an essential part of any OS at this point. If Netscape didn't use the built in Microsoft networking, they would have to write their own networking OS (or pay for Microsoft's/ Novell's, etc.). This would of course cause them to charge a fee for this additional expense, thereby harming the consumer (since Netscape's browser is free).

2.      You also said: "Applications should also be put into a separate company AND that company required to support the top three operating systems for any category of systems for which it offers an application.".

                My opinion: I agree with half of this statement. The portion referring to the split-off of the Applications into a separate company. This could benefit Microsoft as well as the consumer. I however strongly disagree with the second part of the statement regarding supporting the top three operating systems. That should NOT be forced upon them. This is where the DOJ would then become a monopoly, forcing users into something that they may not want. This will greatly harm the consumer, since they may only want just Windows support, just MAC support, or just Linux support. Why should they have to pay for both Windows versions as well as the other two, if you are going to split the application group off into a separate entity? They can pay for it if it is an option (i.e. a lot of applications now support several operating systems). In this case, they would have a Multi-OS version of the product which will appropriately cost 2-3 times the single OS version of the application. This can take extensive research, since companies often pay for one product, only to use a minimal piece of a base product that it is built upon.

                My opinion is also such that I believe that development applications should be broken off into a separate company. Therefore more sophisticated software development tools would start developing at a much more rapid pace, thereby lessening the time it takes to create customized applications. This would benefit the consumer much more than one would think (I do software development as my daily job)!

3.      You further stated: "The OS code should be split multiple ways: a) The consumer OS. b) The enterprise or server code base."

                My opinion: I agree with this generalized concept. Only if it is kept at this level. I do NOT think that it should be forced to sell off its consumer OS. It should however be maintained as a separate entity.

4.      You said (if I may paraphrase): "Microsoft gained a monopoly position with their Internet browser, and therefore must sell it off. Any monies realized for this product should be withheld for pending law suits, and damages incurred.".

        My opinions:

*       This was a feature added to the basic OS product. Yes it can be taken out, but I think that if it is taken out, it should be placed into either the "Application" company, or worse case scenario, into your desired "Networking" company. This however would take away from consumers overall ease of use experience. In this matter I'm referring to the same display for different tasks. They can use the browser to view their hard drive, as well as to go onto the Internet. The look and feel will be the same, thereby not "confusing" the average Joe. I've dealt with many a customer who is just getting a graphical environment to work in (old DOS addicts), and are afraid of it. I assure them that they can get more comfortable by playing "Solitaire" (they of course become much more comfortable with using the computer after "playing" Solitaire). This of course will should be moved to the "Application" company as well, since it is in fact an application running on top of the OS. Incidentally, the user will obviously incur additional cost for this - merely to learn how to use a graphical based system. And if this is true, then Linux distributors should therefore have to bundle their "Applications" separately (and thus charge for them separately).

*       Netscape has few (if any) rights to any of the monies that Microsoft has "supposedly" received by giving away it's browser for free. The company is obviously full of incompetent "weenies" (yes the pun was intentional). Their newest beta release of their browser will cause a MASSIVE rewriting of JavaScript code (about one-fourth to one-half as big as the Y2K "bug") because they have chosen to "cut themselves off at the knees". They have decided to totally drop a previous technology which they maintained for years (and MANY, MANY web developers have coded to support) - this technology is known as "layers" and is used to layout web pages). Netscape therefore is, causing the consumer harm because of all the coding that is necessary to repair after this change. In my opinion, if a company is this foolish, then they deserve to "die". They merely curled up into the fetal position and are now crying "Mommy!" at this point, just so they can get a "free ride". This will far from improve competition in the industry.

Chris