Why extending Microsoft oversight is bad for business.

More states want to extend Microsoft oversight: report Supposedly states have been protecting small businesses from Microsoft and want to extend oversight from the 2002 antitrust settlement that is about to expire. All they appear to have achieved is higher prices. They are targeting the inequalities in the operating system. The government has yet to hear about Web 2.0 and software as a service, though someone at the state level do know enough to tax it. The browser not the operating system is what Microsoft is using to eliminate its competition. Microsoft does not fix bugs or even seriously field reports about bugs. They have reduced the memory in the browser at a time when the operating system has more memory than ever to share. This is because more memory to run applications in the browser competes with their server farm services, server farms that cost over a billion dollars (US). But this can actually be a positive for some programmers. Since the browser has not seen much change it has allowed programmers years to become experts. Developers who know how to optimize memory usage and have custom patches for the bugs and memory leaks have a valuable skill set. If the government really wanted to help they would not tax these new small businesses at three or four times the rate foreign companies are taxed. And to make money available to reduce these taxes they can eliminate the commission that failed to accomplish anything useful.