If I understand correctly, Microsoft agreed to open up its API such that Firefox and eventually Chrome and Opera could provide the same level of integration as Explorer. That basically allowed other browsers to exist on Windows without being rendered crippleware by Microsoft.

That makes sense. A lot of the testimony revolved around Microsoft's efforts to destroy Netscape.

I wonder if it would have made a difference if Microsoft hadn't given the ability to Firefox and the other browsers to exist on Windows. I got the feeling (from listening to the deposition) that people thought that the browser was the window into the internet and without it, all access to the internet would be lost. It was as if Microsoft held the key to the portal of the internet. I also got the feeling that Bill Gates was trying to say that it didn't work like that.

That Microsoft lost their massive monopoly has more to do with the clueless fucktard that is Steve Ballmer than the Microsoft anti-trust. Consider: Microsoft had, effectively, the e-reader, the smartphone, the office suite and the tablet unopposed in 2000 and by 2014 they were a joke in everything but Office, where they're fighting Google for marketshare.

I listened to an interview with Steve Jobs where he explained that the reason he went after the peripherals and devices market was that he knew that Microsoft didn't care about it. He knew that he couldn't fight Microsoft head to head, so he went in through the back door. He could put a new OS on a new device and Microsoft wouldn't fight him on it. Microsoft was too large and too committed to their existing projects to change directions quickly enough to fight Apple when the market changed direction.

That's the reason I wonder whether the lawsuit was necessary. In the technology world, there's always a way to fight an existing technology because it's intellectual property, not a physical asset. Monopolies with physical assets are more difficult to break because once the ownership of all the assets is in one company's hands, it's hard to get enough resources to fight that. But with technology, it only takes another better idea for the market to shift.