Will it be difficult to meet the restrictions? I’m very confident we’ll be able to comply with every aspect of the thing. There will be some overhead in doing it, but we’ll be able to continue on.
So you don’t see the settlement hampering your ability to pursue your future plans. I don’t see it as significantly slowing our ability to improve Windows and work with the industry. [It] won’t fundamentally reduce the speed at which we can improve the products.
In your heart of hearts do you accept that you broke the law? I accept that there have been legitimate concerns in reaching this agreement. We’re acknowledging those concerns, we’re agreeing to make changes, do things in a different way. A lot of this is very new territory, and yet there were concerns, and so new rules had to be created, and Microsoft has agreed to those rules.
Do you consider this experience a waste of time for government and for Microsoft? I wouldn’t say that. I’m sure you’ll find the whole spectrum of opinions, from “this never should have been brought,” to “the company should have been broken into a million pieces.” All those opinions, we respect them all. We’re required to be pragmatic, and to agree to any reasonable measures that will allow us to move forward. I think that the DOJ and the mediator came up with strong restrictions but restrictions we can live with, and with these in place now, we’ll just move forward, and let others think about what might have been or should have been.
