No less conservatives than Kenneth Starr and Robert Bork have commented on the need to do precisely that. The appellate court's decision means that two different courts have looked at Microsoft's conduct, and both courts have ruled that Microsoft has abused its monopoly power in the market. Not only did the appellate court rule that Microsoft had violated antitrust laws, the decision to send the case back to the trial court to determine a remedy opens the door for hearings into the company's new initiatives, such as .Net and HailStorm. The new trial court will be able to review these initiatives and will see that Microsoft's actions have become even more anti-competitive than before. It is clear that the facts of this case, examined in the context of the Sherman Act, yielded the only possible conclusion on the question of whether Microsoft engaged in illegal monopolization.
Monopolization distorts free markets and makes our economy inefficient.
These software markets will not operate freely until competition is fully restored through an appropriate remedy. This raises major concerns about privacy, security and the basic question of whether Microsoft should be permitted extract transaction fees every time a consumer shops or communicates on the Internet. Businesses should take note, because their future internet operations may well be affected by future court rulings. In a White Paper available through Procompetition.org, an anti-Microsoft lobby, Creighton and colleagues discuss not only antitrust, but security and personal privacy issues of Microsoft's plans to leverage its dominance of the Windows, browser and Office systems. The white paper is available through the Procompetition web site.