Well ya. AT&T was allowed to exist for a long time (a very long time) as a monopoly inorder to facilitate the construction of our nation's communication infrastructure.
With them they would charge extra to city people in order to build phone lines in rural areas, for instance. and the amount that they changed extra was not a big deal. Plus you had the cold war and the government needed this decentralized network for communications in case places like Omaha were taken out by a nuclear strike (Omaha was home to the SAC and a major communications hub, as was others like Kansas City and Chicago)
So AT&T had important stratigic, economic, and poliical purposes in being allowed to exist as a monopoly for a long time before their breakup. Never the less they had strong restrictions on what they could and could not do so that they wouldn't use their monopoly status to squish compitition in other feilds.
Such as selling computers and other technology.
MS has nothing like that going for them.
But I am sure you can understand how something like restrictions on expanding their software markets would not be that unusual.
Or you could always make something newer/better. This type of competition is hardly isolated to the software market, just ask the drug manufacturers.[/quote]
Sure sure, but after a period of a few years drug manufacturers get the right to produce chemical duplicates in the form of generic drugs. Can't do that in software because MS hides the source code. So you still end up with compitition in drug companies.
I am not saying that the government should of broken MS up or anything like that. It's just what happens in the software industry today, that's all.