U.S. Senate takes a look at Microsoft

Utah senator Orrin Hatch revealed this week that Microsoft'santi-competitive practices were being monitored by various parts of theU.S. government.

"The government should not use antitrust law to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. But it should use it to ensure that it is the consumers who get to pick the winners and losers, based on the merits of competing products," he said. "I might add that the difficulty the government has had in getting witnesses to go on the record speaks volumes about the nature of competition in the software industry."

Hatch, it should be noted, represents many of Microsoft's competitors,including Novell Corporation. He made comments about Microsoft during atwo hour hearing of the Judiciary Committee that featured testimony fromanti-trust lawyers and technology experts. The hearing was an attempt tobring lawmakers up to speed on the computer industry and most speakers agreed that laws shouldn't stifle technological innovation