Microsoft and Cheaper Software

Re “The Right Microsoft Rx,” editorial, June 25: Utopian optimism is alive and well! To believe that a brigade of Justice Department antitrust lawyers will get us better and cheaper software is beyond irrational.

This Microsoft trial is one of the great farces of the century. Cheaper and better software will come only when the next small group of brilliant software inventors and entrepreneurs arrives on the scene. That we pay taxes to cover the cost of this obscene drama is depressing. The Justice Department should return immediately to the real world and do something useful.

SHERMAN N. MULLIN

Glendale

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The writer of your editorial does not understand what works in the real world of the software industry. Your recommendation that Microsoft spawn multiple copies of Windows to competitors is the recipe for disaster for consumers.

Competing versions of Windows equate to incompatible versions of Windows, plain and simple. Competition between similar yet incompatible flavors of the Unix operating system has resulted in software developers having to write multiple versions of their programs. Unix had a 25-year head start on Windows but the “open source” competing versions have hampered its growth and allowed the unified Windows standard to flourish.

A single, worldwide standard version of Windows is one of the biggest factors in the current success of the PC software industry. Ignoring this fact and suggesting fracturing Windows into multiple, competing, incompatible versions is bad for consumers.

JOHN DICKSON

Santa Barbara