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Despite the best efforts of the Linux community, more than 90 percent of all PCs are running some form of Microsoft Windows, along with a plethora of the company's applications.

Some (especially Microsoft's own PR people) would tell you that this dominance has been achieved through the delivery of top quality products at competitive prices.

Others however, might not be so charitable.

Indeed, in the USA the company has just settled a class-action lawsuit alleging it had effectively overcharged customers for its software, something only possible due to its effective monopoly on the desktop.

As a result of the settlement, Microsoft has been ordered to pay back US $1.1 billion to some US customers who purchased certain Microsoft software titles between Feb 1995 and December 2001.

Sounds like a pretty harsh penalty doesn't it?

$1.1 billion is a lot of money and, if Microsoft were in almost any other industry it would really hurt.

However, Microsoft is in the software business so, believe it or not, this ruling is actually a huge bonus to them

How can being forced to reimburse customers more than a billion dollars be a good thing for Microsoft?

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Well Microsoft won't actually be giving back $1.1 billion in cash -- oh no. It will be giving its customers vouchers that can be redeemed against the company's (or other vendors') products.

Now we all know how little it costs to actually press a CD and stick it in a box with some shrink-wrap don't we?

Yes, that $1.1 billion starts to look as if it could be an an actual cost of as little as US$100,000 or so when you examine it closely.

But wait -- it gets even better (from Microsoft's perspective).

Right now, MS is involved in a battle against Linux. All over the world there are schools, governments, large corporations and individuals contemplating a switch from Windows to an open-source alternative.

Now think about this situation for a moment...

Everyone loves to hate Microsoft. Everything they do these days is scrutinized closely for hints of anti-competitive behaviour.

If Billy's boys were to suddenly give away a billion dollars worth of its products, as a ploy to increase its market share, then all hell would break loose. There's be a huge outcry that the company was abusing its powerful financial resources to force out competition by "dumping."

However, hasn't the court just ordered it to dump up to $1.1 billion worth of product (depending on how many of those vouchers are redeemed against Microsoft's own wares)?

You'd almost be tempted to believe that some smart marketing guru in Redmond had engineered the whole thing wouldn't you?

Instead of imposing any real financial penalty, the courts have effectively granted Microsoft the right (nay, the obligation) to further increase its ownership of the desktops of individuals, schools and companies -- for an *actual* cost of just $100,000 or so.

And, in related news -- that other giant that people love to hate, the music industry, has also been ordered to reimburse customers in the USA after the courts ruled that they'd engaged in price-fixing during the period between 1995 and 2000.

This time the penalty was a total of about $143 million but just half of that was to be paid in cash, the balance offered of by way of free music CDs. What's more, if it works out the apportionment of the cash component drops below $5 per claimant, all the money will go to charity or the government -- ie: those customers who got ripped off will actually get nothing.

And, as one member of the class-action suit commented: "if they were found guilty of price-fixing, why hasn't the price of music CDs dropped since the suit was filed?"

It seems that if you're big, rich and powerful enough, every cloud has a silver lining.

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