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To: Bearded One who wrote (21923)	12/4/1998 5:06:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 24154

>>> It's interesting to me that the DOJ has had such an easy time of it so far. I wonder whether or not this reflects negatively on the Feds-- if this case was such a slam dunk, then they should have gone after Microsoft earlier and traded some risk of losing for a greater effect on the marketplace. <<< They did. But they had the wrong person heading the effort, perhaps because of political considerations or inherited staff from the Bush administration, thus the wimpy consent decree, which was such a disaster that the first judge in the case was fired and replaced by someone softer when he objected to it (a judge with a lot of foresight and principle, as no-one should doubt now), then the second hearing on that where MSFT luckily alienated the current judge, then they got jerked around by MSFT's tame appeals panel. It's not like nothing was happening, especially considering all of the States cases and Caldera and Sun-Java and so forth. This current methodical approach reflects needing to get through not only the judge, (who as some will remember used to be considered pro Microsoft), but the anti-antitrust appeals panel, if they have to, then the supreme court. I don't think they want to end up in the supreme court and get the thing thrown out because they didn't do some particular bit of homework. Actually, considering how slow justice often is, and the ponderous size of the players, this is not bad. Compare this to the IBM or AT&T case. Or to Standard Oil, where they had to actually pass the laws first. Of course, compared to what you actually need in an age of rapidly changing technology, it is completely inadequate in speed of execution. Part of this may be the philosophy of giving MSFT enough rope to hang itself. While all this legal action has been slowly taking place, MSFT has continued to be even more itself than normal, even while under a public microscope (like here on SI), thus providing ever more evidence of it's essential corporate character. Most of the evidence at issue now has been from events that took place since the original consent decree. It always amazes me how people so often run true to form even when they are clearly going to be damaged for it. Compulsions at work. I'd love to play cards with these guys, if only I could buy the cards, hire the dealer, and install a cheat-spotting specialist behind each chair to make sure the game wasn't being fixed in some way. And actually, I think that's similar to what the DOJ has in mind for the future. Chaz