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WASHINGTON (AFP) - A U.S. government proposed breakup of Microsoft would make it harder for consumers to find protection from cyber attacks like the recent "ILOVEYOU" virus that has caused some $10 billion in damage worldwide, chairman Bill Gates said in an essay in Time magazine.
"Updates to Windows and Outlook technologies that could, for example, protect against attacks such as the Love Bug virus would also be much harder for computer users to obtain," Gates wrote in the May 15 issue of the weekly magazine.
Gates is fighting government efforts to split Microsoft into two separate companies, one for the Windows operating system and another for application software. The Microsoft chairman argues that innovation would be hindered if the two types of software were developed separately.
The government plan would "kill innovation in the (operating system) OS - and impair the livelihoods of the tens of thousands of independent software developers who depend on constant innovations in the OS to make their products more attractive."
In April, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found that Microsoft had used its monopoly power to crush rivals to protect its monopoly in personal computer operating systems. Jackson also found that Microsoft had attempted to monopolize the market for Internet browsers, which is software used to access the World Wide Web.
The U.S. Justice Department, along with 17 states, has asked that a federal court split Microsoft into two firms. Microsoft is due to release their response to the request this week.
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