for a computer manufacturer to be selling Windows 3.0 than it was to be
selling any particular DOS.

Microsoft thus used, the government alleged, its power over Windows to
avoid competition with DOS. Both through pricing strategies that made it
economically infeasible for an equipment manufacturer to sell any version
of DOS other than MS-DOS and, according to the European Union's anti-
trust enforcement wing, by directly tying the sale of Windows 3.0 to the sale
of MS-DOS, Microsoft made it impossible for competitors to gain any
foothold in the Microsoft base. Thus, Microsoft could hold the field of its
own users until it could enable the migration of its users over to Win-
dows 95.

Microsoft was behaving, the government alleged, _strategically_.[4-41] It was
limiting the options of its customers so as to protect its own market position.
And this form of competition, the government alleged, was anticompetitive.
Rather than allowing competition in operating systems to flourish, Micro-
soft was threatening competitors who were building products threatening it.

In 1994, the government notified Microsoft that it was about to file suit
against it. The claim was illegal pricing and tying behavior in securing the
field for Microsoft products. After extensive negotiations, Microsoft signed a
consent decree, promising the government that it would not engage in a
string of listed behaviors. The government accepted Microsoft's promises,
and the case with Microsoft was settled.

A consent decree is just a contract. The government promises not to sue
if Microsoft promises not to engage in certain behaviors. Nothing in the
contract concedes that the behavior challenged was illegal; nothing in
the contract binds the government never to sue Microsoft for other anti-
competitive behavior. The decree is just a simple way for the government to
stop the harm it believes a company is doing, without a long and expensive
trial proving that the behavior is, in fact, illegal. If the company that signed
a consent decree breaches the agreement, then the government is able to
get a court to enjoin the breaching behavior.

After the government settled the case, it announced to the world that it
had made the world free for operating system competition. Assistant Attor-
ney General Anne Bingaman promised there would now be a great deal of
competition among operating systems.[4-42] The field had been opened up,
Bingaman said; competitors would flock to the field. Microsoft would face
important competitive pressures; its monopoly position would be erased.

Microsoft had a different view of the decree. It believed it would have no
real effect. Said Bill Gates to the press, "None of the people who run those

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