Sunday April 9/2000 BBC2 18.10

Sunday April 9/2000
BBC2 18.10

Murdering Microsoft
This week, an American judge ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly that had abused its immense power in the software marketplace. This sparked off mayhem in stockmarkets and wild speculation about the future of one of the most successful companies the world has seen. So what will be done to bring Microsoft to heel? Will the company be bound in regulatory chains or broken up? And what could that do to a high-tech industry that has delivered America such economic prosperity? Nils Blythe reports.

E-tailing: can it deliver?
The internet share price bubble has been floating high on a hope: that e-commerce will boom, and yield vast profits for investors. Forecasts for internet retailing - or e-tailing, as it's known - have been particularly optimistic. Consumers will desert the high street, we're told, and do much of their shopping online. A social and business revolution is at hand. But how realistic are these forecasts? Are shoppers really prepared to abandon the supermarket trolley for the mouse? And how reliable are online retailers in getting the goods from store to door? Steve Levinson investigates.