"Too big to fail is too big to exist," stated famous radio talk show host and progressive author Thom Hatmann in a fairly recent televised debate. Too big to fail is too big to exist, according to the Sherman Antitrust Act, first enacted by Congress in 1890. The Sherman Act was named for US Senator John Sherman of Ohio, who was an expert on the regulation of commerce. This legislation successfully brought suit against Standard Oil in 1906 under President Teddy Roosevelt’s administration where the New Jersey company was forced to divest itself of a total of 33 companies. Another noteworthy example of the Sherman Act was the 1984 breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph into one long distance phone company, AT&T, and seven regional Baby Bell companies. In 2001 a court-ordered breakup of Microsoft, due to its Internet browser software monopoly was overturned by an appeals court, in large part due to former CEO Bill Gates’ threat to close down Microsoft and stop supporting its global server software empire, which would have caused widespread corporate chaos as national business computer networks crashed as well as vast consumer PC problems due to the inability to download patches and apply other typical maintenance or repair, support services.
Moreover, what about basis of cloud computing–the Internet? Is it too big to fail and thus too big to exist? If so how would this affect the end user? Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the Internet is on par with the development of air-conditioning…without AC you would not have computers. The good news is thanks to the Internet, you can save yourself hundreds, even thousands of dollars, by troubleshooting and repairing your own computer equipment. In the next Internet In Bloom edition we will explore how and with which specific websites because as famous consumer advocate and author Ralph Nader says, "To know and not to do, is not to know."
In closing, as a full-time NYC Librarian I am busy but would love to hear from you. Please send your questions to: NYLibrarian@yahoo.com or visit http://computersinbloom.8k.com
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