F. Leon Wilson wrote: [...] >The benefits of a Micro$oft breakup will be seen in the innovations of >hardware and software item reaching the market place. A reduction the >total cost of software ownership and computing in general. Many of >corporation, organizations and end users held hostage to the Micro$oft >secretes standards will be freed to advance their development and the >development of the industry in general. True, but again not the whole truth. > >There are too many people/corporation and/or organizations that have >decided to solely concentrate on Micro$oft's psedo standards and products. >They ignore better implementations of products and services which create >barriers to innovations and progress. "Pseudo standards"? I take it you mean standards which are designed largely to prevent competition. But I'm not sure there are any other kind of standards, or that competitive standards would be in anyone's interests. In high technology competitive standards are a positive menace, as the Mars explorer fiasco, involving a mix of Imperial and Metric components, demonstrated. Standards are always designed to shut out those who do not use them. The problem is when standards are privately-owned. If the problem is the standard windows operating system being privately owned and being used to stymie competition, then surely the solution is to remove the system from private ownership? Standards are, by their nature, a monopoly. Eliminating non-standard items is an important part of creating a standard. Standards are an acknowledgement that monopoly is not only useful, but essential in many many circumstances. Such monopolies are simply the most efficient way to operate. Bill Gates clearly understands that it is much more efficient for there to be one standard operating system, to produce one standard browser, one standard word processor, etc. And you have to admit that he does it cheaply. There is something of a problem with the fact that the Microsoft "standard" products are very often far from the best possible standard. But the vast wealth of Microsoft was created from the success of inferior standards, because the consumers would clearly rather have a crappy standard than no standard at all. Monopoly is an irresistable trend in capitalism, for both commercial and technical reasons. It is simply more efficient. Resistance is futile, don't you think Tresy? ;-) Bill Bartlett Bracknell tas