Twenty-seven years ago today, October 19, 1998 (August 29, 1998 in the lunar calendar), Microsoft faced the U.S. government for violating federal antitrust laws. This unclear lawsuit seems to show that there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the old order of the 20th century and the reality of rapid development. After more than a year of repeated arguments, the U.S. District Court in Washington held a hearing on January 19 to hear the case that the Ministry of Justice and 20 state governments sued the world software giant, Microsoft, for violating federal antitrust laws. Since October last year, the U.S. Department of Justice has begun to invoke relevant provisions of the Anti-Monopoly Law to investigate Microsoft, believing that Microsoft's integration of its Internet browser into the "Windows 95" and later the "Windows 98" operating system is suspected of monopolizing the market, which led to a lengthy dispute between Microsoft and the Department of Justice. The war between Microsoft and the U.S. government responds to an old saying in China: "A big tree attracts wind." Faced with what is claimed to be the largest antitrust lawsuit in the history of the United States, Microsoft's stock fell sharply. The company's total losses exceeded US$8.3 billion, and Bill Gates's own wealth also fell by US$1.8 billion. However, Bill Gates and his Microsoft are myths. While the lawsuit between Microsoft and the U.S. government was in full swing here, Microsoft's financial report for the first quarter of fiscal year 1998 was quietly released. What is surprising is that Microsoft's first-quarter profit, which has been plagued by lawsuits, increased by 58%, far exceeding the company's own estimates! This growth rate suggests that Microsoft's total profit for the first fiscal quarter was $1.052 billion. Many economic analysts have to admit that the ongoing lawsuit of the century in Washington will have little impact on Microsoft. Since the beginning of this century, the U.S. judiciary has successively prosecuted some large companies in accordance with the antitrust law enacted in 1890. In 1906, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Standard Oil of New Jersey, which eventually led to the company's dismemberment into several companies, including Exxon, Mobil and American Petroleum. In 1969, the Justice Department accused IBM of bundling hardware and software, but later technological developments made the lawsuit meaningless and was finally terminated in 1982. In 1972, the Justice Department accused AT & T of monopolistic behavior. Ten years later, the company lost the case and was forced to divide into eight small companies. But unlike Standard Oil and AT & T, which were dismembered by the U.S. government in the past, Microsoft has few tangible entities to divide into. Kenneth Arrow, an economist at Stanford University in the United States and Nobel laureate in economics, said frankly: "I don't see any reasonable basis for dismembering Microsoft." According to the old method, Microsoft should be divided into two companies, one company responsible for the operating system and the other company responsible for software application and development. The new idea of the U.S. government is to dismember Microsoft into two or more "Little Bill Companies", each of which may participate in the software market. However, both old and new ideas will create a new problem that cannot be solved at all: how to divide the "human asset" of Microsoft's 27000 software engineers, programmers, researchers and other employees? In the early 1990s, U.S. federal antitrust judicial officials tried to dismember Microsoft, but had to give up because they could not solve the problem in the end. Moreover, the antitrust laws of the United States have their own contradictions, that is, while protecting some enterprises, they in turn restrict the development of other enterprises. As Microsoft's lawyer Walden said in court: "Back then, when Netscape's browser accounted for 90% of the market, why didn't the U.S. Department of Justice say it was a monopoly?" The U.S. government actually plays the role of sniper in this lawsuit. It not only requires Microsoft to remove the Explorer browser in Windows 98, but also installs Netscape's Navigator browser. No wonder Bill Gates said sarcastically: "This is equivalent to requiring Coca-Cola to sell it with three bottles of Pepsi in half a dozen products." Bill Gates