Thoughts and comments on the DOJ investigation

Despite the fact that I am sometimes (incorrectly) labeled as a   Microsoft sycophant, I think the DOJ, not Microsoft, is right here.   On the other hand, products like Windows 95 OSR 2.5 and Windows 98   really negate the whole issue as far as I'm concerned.

The announcement occurred on the day Microsoft was to release its   quarterly earnings. Coincidence? Is the government trying to    purposefully hurt Microsoft's stock price? I think so. In fact, that    sounds like the basis of a nice little lawsuit to me.

Oh, the irony: One beautiful side-story no one touched on yesterday was   that PC makers nagged Microsoft so much about IE 4.0 and Windows 95 that   Microsoft is going to give them a special version of Window 95 called   OSR 2.5 that will *include* IE 4.0 right in the install code. Meanwhile,   the DOJ court filing is centered around complaints that Microsoft is   forcing them to include IE 4.0. Who is forcing who here? And more   importantly, which company, exactly, was it that complained to the DOJ?   I bet it wasn't a PC maker.

A correction from Bud Aaron: the 1994 consent decree does not    specifically mention software bundling; it required Microsoft to stop   collecting fees from computers that didn't have Windows installed. Of   course, the DOJ complaint does center around the bundling of IE 4.0,   which the District Attorney describes as "separate" from Windows 95,    using 15 pages of Microsoft documentation as evidence.