Whats the significance of the Microsoft antitrust case?
I have to personalize this a little bit because I’ve known Bill [Gates] for many years. And one part of the antitrust case is rubbing against a technology and business belief for me that is inviolate: Browsers and operating systems are destined to merge. No judge can keep them from merging, and I don’t think any judge wants to keep them from merging. The reason is simple: People want to deal with information the same way, whether that information is sitting on their local machine or on a distant machine somewhere on the network. The same few commands ought to do the same things about viewing information, hearing it, massaging it, displaying it, printing it, acting on it with programs. I’ve had big discussions with Bill on which we disagree. He wants to go there incrementally, he wants to modify Windows, and he has to–he’s got 100 million copies out there. I believe that’s ultimately not as useful to people, it’s still very difficult to use. And I’m not picking on Bill. Whether it’s Ma
