Java and Linux are well-suited for use on the Internet because they create clean, modular interfaces between hardware and software components. Such modularity could obviate the need for computer operating systems as we know them. When such modular conditions exist, not only do independent, nonintegrated companies tend to dominate new applications, but the power of the nonintegrated business model eventually overwhelms the integrated companies in their original applications. This happened to most monopolies in the past. It's also likely to happen to Microsoft.
Competitive forces are very good at killing monopolies.
The Justice Department might do well to back away from its challenge to Microsoft and let the forces of disruptive technology and technological modularity do their work. Clayton M. Christensen is a professor at Harvard Business School and was a keynote speaker at the 1999 InformationWeek Fall Conference.