ARLINGTON, VA – Mergers and new technologies in the communications, computer, and related sectors have made the U.S. suit against Microsoft obsolete, declared Alexis de Tocqueville Institution Chairman Gregory Fossedal today.

Fossedal referred to the settlement between Microsoft and Caldera Company in Utah, which developed a competing computer operating system, as demonstrating that the Justice Department’s objectives in the case may not mirror those of consumers or even competing firms.

"At almost the same time this case is being settled by the parties out of court and with minimal damage to the companies or the U.S. economy, the Justice Department apparently plants a story that it seeks the radical remedy of breaking up Microsoft in its own litigation," Fossedal said.

He noted the recent merger between America Online and Time-Warner Communications, the explosion of internet usage, increased choices of software availability via Application Software Providers since the case was launched, and other technological and commercial developments. "The real world is making the suit against Microsoft unnecessary, and unwarranted," he added. "But it is costly and potentially damaging to consumer choice."

"Press leaks and revelations about the case also raise serious ethical questions about both the conduct of the case and the motives for bringing it in the first place," Fossedal said. "With the information that the Justice Department proposes to break up Microsoft’s popular computer operating systems division, there is the feeling of a vendetta here."

An Alexis de Tocqueville Institution study to be published this spring, he said, is finding that a large number of major soft dollar donors to the Democratic Party over the last three election cycles are now plaintiffs, witnesses, or beneficiaries in U.S. anti-trust cases.

"A much more urgent need than pursuing any further political leverage operations on behalf of other large companies is to take a sober look at U.S. anti-trust policy – a review of both the way cases are managed and how they are selected for action," Fossedal said.

"Such a review and reform would be the best way to advance real anti-trust protection, by bringing it into the 21^st Century and focusing the Justice Department’s cases on consumers, rather than campaign donors."