it makes sure that those practices that the government feels couls arproscribed, arprohibed, while allowing to innovate and design its own products. i think one of the things the microsoft case established is that the antitrust laws can be applied to high-tech industries. that means that consumers in a wide variety of industries will be better off because of the microsoft case. because now they'll get the benefit of competition. for more analysis of monopoly, we hear from nariman behravesh. the u.s. government's case against microsoft in the end will be seen as the opening salvo in a broad based attempt to curb the software maker's monopolistic practices. aol time warner, the current owner of netscape, and sun microsystems have launched separate, pvate suits against microsoft. european antitrust authorities have also geared up to curtail the anticompetitive behavior of the software giant. however, the biggest check on microsoft's monopolistic behavior could well be the rapid pace of technological change in the computer, software, and online industries. already, microsoft s had to tnsform it