Visions Of A Windows-Free World

Developers See Cars And Jackets As Smart As PCs

(CBS)  Redmond, Wash., may be unhappy with the Microsoft breakup ruling, but Silicon Valley is not.

The high-tech hotbed south of San Francisco is home to many victims of what a federal judge concluded were Microsoft's unfair and illegal business tactics -- and they are glad to see a big bully cut down to size, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.

For thousands of high tech developers gathering at in San Francisco, the breakup of Microsoft was already a source of jokes.

Scott McNealy, the head of Sun Microsystems, a company attacked by Microsoft, read his own top ten list for Bill Gates, joking, "You got nailed, " a play on the ubiquitous AOL greeting.

At the JavaOne conference, packed with Internet visionaries, there is proof that while justice has been grinding on, technology has been speeding forward.

An automobile Internet system, for example, offers full Web access including real-time traffic reports, a stock ticker, and news updates.

In the vision of the future on display at this conference, Microsoft is no longer in the driver's seat. It is a future in which everything from automobiles to refrigerators can connect to the Internet, and the Microsoft-dominated personal computer fades in importance.

One day even an electronically wired leather jacket might take on all the tasks of a computer, a pager and a cell phone.

Doug Sutherland of Sun Microsystems says, "What I'd like is to have you call me and my jacket answers."

While Microsoft argues that its breakup will stifle innovation, many believe the Microsoft monopoly has slowed technology's advance.

Jim Warren, a Silicon Valley pioneer, says Microsoft's widely used e-mail program, Outlook Express, frequently malfunctions.

He says, "I would never use Outlook Express -- it's too dangerous to use it."

Outlook's weaknesses, Warren says, allowed the rapid spread of recent e-mail viruses.

"The so-called Internet viruses that we've had so much trouble with this year are not really Internet viruses -- they're Microsoft viruses," he says.