seth_wilde - 8:51 pm on Apr 24, 2002 (gmt 0)

"How about Opera? You may buy a different browser for $39 if you wish. It didn't take an anti-trust suit to allow Opera Software ASA to exist or to bring their product to market."

Look at it from a different perspective. What if Dell computers decided that Opera was a superior product, because of this, they decided to ship all their new computers preinstalled with Opera. M$ hears of Dell's plan and Bill Gates make a personal phone call to Michael Dell telling him that if they ship their computers with Opera installed, M$ will no longer supply Dell with Windows. This would effectively destroy the #1 computer manufacturer in the world. Although Opera is currently surviving, with the current market conditions, there is absolutely no way they could gain a majority market share even with a superior product.

"This is a food on the table issue for a vast number of people"

I agree, but it's not only for those people who depend on M$.. think about those whose business was destroyed by M$

"you can thank Bill Clinton for the dot-com crash"

That's odd... I always thought it was becuase over valued companies with horrible business plans and no feasible way to make profits didn't work...