He's right, of course. Many of us have argued the same things.

[link|http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040401.html|Here]:

So Microsoft will pay the European fine, which will have no impact on their behavior. They will appeal the decision, which will freeze any real enforcement action and effectively authorize continuation for another two to five years of otherwise proscribed behavior while the appeal moves forward. And if its European appeal fails, Microsoft will still be $8-20 billion ahead of where it might be had they actually attempted some version of compliance, which they won't. By that time, too, enough will have changed that Microsoft will have good grounds for arguing that it\ufffds a different world and just maybe all parties should start again from scratch.

Much the same thing is happening in the U.S., too. Microsoft is laboring under a consent decree ostensibly being monitored by Harry Saal and his team up in Redmond, but I'm hearing enough grumblings through friends of friends to believe that Microsoft isn't paying a lick of attention to complying with that agreement. Why should they? Compliance just slows the company down without providing Microsoft any advantage. While it may look like the company agreed to comply, what is really happening is the company agreed to be bound by certain requirements, not necessarily to comply with them. At the end of the day, they can always opt for what's behind door number three, which is the DoJ's punishment for noncompliance. But Microsoft knows that any such punishment won't be enough to reverse the gains of noncompliance, and that there is a good chance there will be no punishment at all.

Cheers,
Scott.