Microsoft Is Guilty as Charged. So What?

Those fidgety day traders didn't bother waiting for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's second decision in the Microsoft antitrust trial. As the 5 p.m. announcement drew nearer on Monday, the desktop dealers dumped more and more of their investments in the tech-heavy NASDAQ, and by the time Jackson, who four months earlier had found that Microsoft wielded monopoly power, delivered a guilty verdict on two of three counts of abusing that power, they had produced a record 348-point, 7.6 percent plunge.

But don't count Microsoft, or the NASDAQ, or the high-tech industry, out just yet. While the government is now technically compelled to take action that will change Microsoft's business — many think Jackson will seek to break the firm into a bunch of "Baby Bills" when he produces his "remedy" in August — Bill Gates and his Redmond buddies are widely expected to appeal the decision, a process that could drag on for years. In the meantime, the whole nature of the computer-sofware-Internet business will have changed.

"The market prepared itself for the worst today," says TIME business editor William Saporito. "But in the long run, this may not have such a big impact. The longer the trial drags on, the less the market will need a remedy. We're moving from the PC age to the Internet age, and Microsoft is simply not a force on the Internet. Two years from now the market could very well have done the job that Justice set out to do — making sure that Microsoft won't be dictating to anybody."