(Reuters) - British analysts shed no tears for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and predicted he would have to sue for peace with the U.S. government after a federal judge found the company was an unfair monopoly.
Business editors and market observers thought that the American whose wealth is "more than that of Britain's 100 richest individuals added together," as one newspaper put it, would be forced to negotiate a settlement rather than risk the breakup of Microsoft.
"We suspect, and I think most people feel, that Microsoft will actually go for a settlement with the government ... to avoid being split up," Jason Nisse, editor of the Independent Sunday newspaper, told Sky television Saturday.
Gates and his Microsoft Corp had been cornered, said technology analyst Simon Moores.
"Microsoft had been hoping to find some ambiguity in the judgement, but that doesn't seem to be there," Moores told the Observer newspaper. "Gates needs to achieve a compromise quickly -- it looks very bad for Microsoft at the moment."
Nisse noted Microsoft shares had fallen in reaction to the judgement in the United States Friday and "could well fall further Monday ... Microsoft is in a very exposed position."
The finding of fact issued by U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Friday said Microsoft had a monopoly in operating system software for personal computers and used its power to punish competitors and harm consumers.
"Microsoft Court Ruling Sees Gates Crash to Earth," was the headline in The Sunday Times early editions. But the paper also reported that Gates, through his involvement in the Destination Europe consortium, was in talks to buy a golf club in Britain.
One analyst said the U.S. authorities should just sit back and let the market minimize Microsoft, arguing that its product Windows was looking increasingly archaic as an operating system, as did even the personal computer.
"Already the Internet is being delivered through the television and the telephone rather than the PC," Neil Bennett wrote in The Sunday Telegraph, adding that Microsoft's Internet products were "surprisingly primitive."
In any case, he said, the rest of the world should be glad of America's tradition of "shackling" its most powerful companies instead of nurturing them.
"There is a self-destruct gene at the heart of American free enterprise, and the rest of us should be thankful for it.
"Each time America spawns a truly world-class company, the country's politicians, regulators, and a sprinkling of unsuccessful competitors rise up, determined to put an end to such commercial success," Bennett said. |
