Since Microsoft convinced the Bush administration to drop the case, Microsoft remains a monopoly and remains subject to special treatment under the law. This is good and just, but certainly not as efficient or good as a structural remedy would have been.

Consumers don’t lose when monopolists are restricted. Consumers lose when monopolists are allowed to destroy competition unabated.

The consumer surplus that you claims is destroyed actually is not destroyed. Users who really, really want this PDF generation feature have many choices: Open Office, Adobe plugins for Office, switching to a Mac and OSX, etc. If users don’t view lack of integrated PDF creation as sufficient stimulus to migrate away from MS’s Monopoly Office product, it must not even be that important of a featuer, no?

By threatening this suit, Adobe has done serious damage to itself. Up to now, it was assumed that PDF was an open format that anyone could generate. Now Adobe is saying that it can yank permission to generate PDF’s, creating uncertainty for everyone. This increases the attractiveness of alternative formats.

If M$ is “borrowing” Adobe PDF code then I would have a limited degree of sympathy for Adobe’s position. However, if M$ is using its own “clean room” code to generate a PDF compatible document then I don’t have any sympathy for Adobe.

To use the proverbial automobile analogy: if I own a Chevy and I design an adapter that allows me to use a Ford fuel pump in the Chevy; neither Ford nor Chevy should have the ability to prevent me from using the pump with that adapter.