Yet clearly many customers would prefer that these mission-critical applications and Windows NT remain the responsibility of a single organization. Fortunately, settlement discussions are much more likely to specifically focus on curbing Microsoft's operating-system power. A traditional divestiture would fail to enact these important behavioral changes. Indeed, it would actually make real change much less likely because the whole point of a one-time breakup is to eliminate the need for detailed government interventions. But such skilled interventions are precisely what's needed.
Divestitures are exciting and have worked in the past, but it's now clearly the wrong way to go.
The 800-pound gorillas in your supply chain will be calling the shots. It's highly unlikely that your IT standards say anything at all about how to make your systems more usable for the disabled. But you should have such standards, Computerworld's Gary Anthes advises. The Cost of Suing Protecting intellectual property is vitally important, but can be vastly expensive, if it's not approached in the right way. MARK HALL Global Careerspeak Globalization means more than doing business in your own language.