Hi-Tech World Weighs Ruling

In California's Silicon Valley, Microsoft has always been an outsider. While it was only this year that the giant from Redmond, Washington opened a major office here, Microsoft has cast its shadow across this sunny place for a long time, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.

"If you were noticed and they decided to compete with you, you would be out of business," said writer Howard Rheingold, a Silicon Valley thinker who is always trying to imagine where computing will go next. "If the judge had ruled the other way I think that was really the last obstacle between Microsoft and world domination. The Internet is essentially the structure upon which everything in the future is going to be built, the way we govern ourselves, educate ourselves, health care, commerce."

Like Rheingold, Cliff Stoll is one of the early Silicon Valley visionaries. He says the Internet was already weakening Microsoft's grip.

"(The Internet is) not owned by anybody. Microsoft doesn't control it. Intel doesn't control it. ItÂ's a free for all. And if you have a good idea and you can crank it out into a good web site, Microsoft can't push you out of there," Stoll insists.

Still with a less powerful Microsoft Stoll sees a more complicated future.

"You might see this decision as a sad day for computing. Sad in the sense that it bodes a time of confusion when there's no emperor. There's no king in control." Stoll predicts that "not only will things become more expensive, but they will become frustratingly incompatible."

While much of Silicon Valley is happy to see the government rein in Microsoft, the industry does not want ongoing government regulation of their freewheeling and booming business.