Microsoft: Breaking up is hard to do, say locals

ORLANDO -- The fate of Microsoft is still up in the judicial air, but an unofficial sampling of local opinion reveals some decidedly mixed feelings.

"Microsoft has created a user-friendly product that is hard to compete with. I can't see why the government is doing this at all," says David Ertel Jr., a computer science student at UCF. "Microsoft has a right to put their browser in their own operating system. That's not anti-competitive; it's just promotion. You can always uninstall it."

Scott Turman, the co-founder of Renaissance Technology Group, an up-and-coming Orlando firm, also says any breakup of the monolith is a two-edged sword. "If Microsoft is split in two, a good deal of cooperative product advancement may get lost in the divide," he says. "How can you make a truly good development tool for a competing company?"

Adds Mark Kiessling, a local technology consultant, "I can't see it being too much of a great thing for competition. It won't affect their control on the market. It's like taking a pie and cutting it in half. You still have a whole pie out there."

That's not to say there is no upside to humbling the giant. Says Turman, "If Microsoft were to break up, it will certainly open up a lot of opportunities for competing operating systems and other technology because, presently, you're forced to use their technologies. It will also open up more opportunities for these small to medium-sized companies to compete."

And even Kiessling thinks that sort of competition is long overdue. "I see nothing but Windows on the computers in showrooms," he says. "If I went into a Toyota dealer and saw nothing but trucks, how can I choose the car?"

Kenneth Wheeler, a Orlando tax lawyer specializing in "wealth care," sums up the fed's point of view: "The predatory practices of Microsoft are no secret; anyone in software development has experience with it. They are almost without conscience when it comes to partnering with companies and ripping them off."