Stiff Penalties Wouldn't Stop Microsoft

"They're like a juggernaut, like the Borg. Resistance is futile," said Jim Gildea, president of Aegis Associates, a solution provider in Watertown, Mass.

If the ruling was negative, Microsoft would have continued its monopolistic practices and worried about the repercussions after the fact, said Peter Busam, vice president and COO of Decisive Business Systems, a solution provider in Pennsauken, N.J.

"It will be one of those things where they say, 'Just let us get into it and then we'll worry about whatever fallout there is,' " Busam said.

Many solution providers agree the U.S. government has to play a role in monitoring monopolistic companies. But some wondered how effective any federal oversight could be.

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"I don't think the government is effective in a lot of things it does for itself, so how can we expect them to affect change in companies?" said Barry Malter, CEO and president of Advantage Technologies, a solution provider in Armonk, N.Y.

Malter said he believes that oversight is even less effective to a company with the size and power of Microsoft. "[Microsoft has the game plans set up, so regardless, they're going down that path," he said. "They've set their sites wherever the margin growth is."

Ironically, the emergence of Web services and XML, and their ability to bridge the gap between Microsoft-based technologies, has rendered moot the Java controversy that has been at the center of the Microsoft antitrust, said Rob Mock, CEO and president of Detroit-based solution provider Dewpoint.

Curt Stevenson, co-founder and vice president of business development at Boston-based solution provider Back Bay Technologies, also agreed the ruling probably won't affect Java implementations going forward. "That's not a huge threat to Java," he said. "At least from what we're seeing, the enterprise-class applications that have really high transaction and volume requirements, and apps that are high volume over the Web will continue to be built in Java."

JENNIFER HAGENDORF FOLLETT, MARCIA SAVAGE and ELLIZABETH MONTALBANO contributed to this report.