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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (19909)	6/5/1998 12:11:00 PM
From: Keith Hankin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

"While the Microsoft and Intel cases are entirely separate and will turn on different legal points, there's a conceptual similarity: If it's wrong for Microsoft to assimilate more and more technologies into the OS, it probably ought to be wrong for Intel to do so, too. On the other hand, if a built-in browser is no big deal and simply Netscape's tough luck, then Intel ought to be allowed to build whatever it wants into its chip sets." I posted a rebuttal on cmpnet. Here's my perspective: There is a fundamental difference between hardware and software integration of new features that your article fails to distinguish. While there are large benefits for the consumer to be had by integrating new features into a single chip, there are no benefits to be had by integrating new features into the OS. Integration on a chip results in benefits such as lower cost, lower power requirements, higher speed, and a smaller form-factor. Integration into an OS, however, is simply a marketing issue. Any good software designer will tell you that properly written software should be modular, and if it is really and truly integrated (as opposed to bundled with a marketing spin of being "integrated"), then it is poorly designed. I very much doubt that Microsoft's software is indeed really integrated, but instead is bundled. The only "benefit" that can be had from software "integration" is for Microsoft, not the customer. Perhaps Microsoft is just playing games with semantics. The word "integrated" can be taken to simply mean "included with", whereas "integral" means "cannot be without". But I am using the word "integrated" above to be equivalent to "integral", which is what most people take it to mean when entering this discussion. Otherwise, bundling could be considered integration, and this whole conversation would be as meaningless as Microsoft's interpretation of the consent decree.