It is not surprising then that the digital herd has taken such delight in the court's judgment that Microsoft, by willy-nilly thrusting its Microsoft Explorer with its Windows software, has strangulated competition, stifled innovation and left consumers with turn-of-the-century's most feared predicament, no freedom of choice. Microsoft scrips have predictably taken something of a battering, but the implications for the information technology industry are debatable. Will, as seems likely, Microsoft's appeal be spurned? Will the company split up? Will it have to retreat from certain sectors? Will the quest for innovation suddenly animate the IT industry? Or will the ruling simply result in debilitating problems for the company that has revolutionised the way the world works and relaxes? Clearly, anti-trust rules and guidelines are not so clear in industries dependent on cutting-edge technologies, like biotechnology and IT.With the pace of technological development outstripping man's capacity to grasp the import of innovations taking place in sundry labs, the rules of the game too are being revolutionised.

But if monopolist tendencies have to be nipped, no matter how blurred the very definition of a monopoly is becoming, there is another monopoly which requires immediate attention. While globalisation and the telecommunication revolution have effaced old boundaries, new ghettoes have also been delineated. It has been deemed the digital divide. As islands of prosperity and digital connectedness spring up in the prosperous West and an underprivileged Third World, this new elite is partaking of millennium delights beyond the reach of the non-islanders. And with lifestyle and work conveniences offered by computer and Internet access undergoing an exponential growth, this gap will only increase with time. Yes, monopolist worries about Microsoft call for action, but so does the inequitable digital divide.