Quote:
Originally Posted by murg
Going from memory, they all entered into consent agreements: The Bell System broke up into the baby bells; Microsoft has various editions of Windows, with and without Internet Explorer and Media Player, and doesn't default search to Bing; and I don't remember what IBM agreed to, but it agreed to something because Bill Gates was afraid that Microsoft would become as cautious as IBM after running afoul of the monopoly laws.
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The Microsoft case was overturned on appeal and the case was sent to a new judge when it was determined that the original judge had violated judicial guidelines for conduct. At that point, the DOJ backed off their initial demands that Microsoft be broken up and basically the was a consent agreement that Microsoft sin no more. I believe that the IBM anti trust case was dismissed, at least if we are talking about the case from the 70's.
Judge Green broke up AT&T into the Baby Bells (and then made it his life's work to continue managing AT&T and the Baby Bells until he retired at which point wiser heads took over and all the restrictions on AT&T and the Baby Bells was removed), but then again, that was a special situation since AT&T was a regulated monopoly.