Ruling on Microsoft

* Re “Microsoft Should Be Our Last Worry,” Commentary, Nov. 9: Robert Scheer is confused. He is seeing Microsoft with his blinders on and ignoring the pertinent facts. It was Microsoft that threatened to withhold its operating system from any personal computer vendor who refused to make Internet Explorer the default (and only) browser on its computers. It was Microsoft that made it difficult (if not impossible for inexperienced users) to override Internet Explorer with Netscape Navigator. It was also Microsoft that undercut the prices of competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus, by bundling its applications in a suite and practically giving it away to PC manufacturers.

Was it good business on their part? Probably. Was it good for consumers? No. It restricted or eliminated choice, quashed the innovation that is born of competition and forced consumers to take what they were given, when what they wanted was something very different--an operating system, for example, that didn’t require an engineer to figure out.

In the last round of announcements from Redmond, Microsoft President Steve Ballmer admitted that Windows isn’t quite the user-friendly OS that users had been asking for for years; finally, Microsoft was planning to listen to customers and create a new version that is closer to . . . the Macintosh. But only after the pressure of intense public scrutiny had been applied through the Justice Department’s proceedings.

Breaking up Microsoft will probably be good for the company. It will compel them to win by being better, not by bullying. It will force them to make products people want, not products they want to make. And it will put them back in touch with the reality that operating systems are a dying breed; the Internet and universal access technologies are making operating systems as obsolete--from a user’s perspective--as the manual typewriter and 10-key machine.

PETER ALTSCHULER

Wordsworth & Co. LLC

Santa Monica

* I’ve never had a letter delivered by anyone other than the U.S. Postal Service. The price of stamps has never gone down. Isn’t this an unfair monopoly?

Requiring Microsoft to publish its proprietary code for Windows in order for its competitors to market generic versions would be like ordering Coca-Cola to reveal its formula for Coke.

When the government gets involved, the consumer usually gets the shaft.

SAM PINTERPE

Huntington Beach

* Bill Gates keeps talking about “innovation.” I wish somebody would tell me of any technical innovation that has come out of Microsoft.

DAVID FEIGN

Santa Ana