Some are willing to acknowledge that whatever Microsoft has achieved has been on good grounds, and it's really a case of sour grapes on the side of its competitors. The news article is followed by an analysis, but to save the bandwidth, I will omit that.
History repeats itself.
Today, proving history's penchant to rehash old theme, antitrust officials announced that they reached a tentative agreement with Microsoft Corp. regarding a similar plan that would break up the software giant into two independent companies. The agreement, when finally approved by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where government's antitrust suits against Microsoft are pending, will end the Justice Department's decade old legal effort to curb Microsoft's monopoly market power. District Court Judge Harold Greene is expected to issue his initial approval in two months after Microsoft submits its action plan for divestiture and stock splitting. Operating system software controls all functions linking application programs to computer hardware. Today's press release indicates that Microsoft will divest desktop and non-PC platform system software divisions but the Internet Platform and Tools Division, which is part of Platform Product Group to be divested, will remain with Microsoft.