The reality is that MS has to do something soon to keep themselves from becoming irrelevant in the server and desktop OS space.  It’s also a good business model to make money off of your competitors’ success.  In MS’ case, it likely crosses the monopolistic barrier.  The really interesting part of this story, though, is their timing.  MS has had 6 years of a sympathetic administration and congress.  They wait until a week and a half after a democratic majority is elected into the congress – a majority that has already started gumming up the ATT/Bell South merger.

I suspect MS is cognizant of this and will keep their actions to rhetoric and the occaisional “protection racket” deal like they signed with SUSE/Novell.  Here’s the story: http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/11/17/ballmer/index.php