A couple things I don't understand about your comment. Maybe this is my lack of understanding of the technology parts. From what I understand, there's hardware and there's software. When you buy hardware, you can strip the software if you want to use some other interface to make the computer work. How would Microsoft put a compiler in a computer that couldn't be stripped out to use another program?

As to this particular lawsuit, that's not my understanding of what happened. This lawsuit was about business practices that Microsoft used to lock out their competitors out of the browser market.

Your comment touches less on the Microsoft situation and more about whether antitrust lawsuits in general for technology products are necessary. If there was a piece of software or technology that would force users to use their product, would that be considered a monopoly? In a sense, isn't that the nature of competition that other companies are free to create a product that would break the stranglehold on the other company's product?

Disclaimer: I tried to untwist my panties, but I think I like them that way. :p