Why is Bill Gates smiling?

Kelly McNeill writes “With negotiations on the penalty phase of Microsoft’s antitrust case barely underway, new lawsuits coming from every direction, and consumer groups warning about Microsoft as though the company were a resident sex offender, one might think that Bill Gates would be, well, worried. One would be wrong. For one thing, Gates knows that some of the very companies that vilify Microsoft’s marketing practices — like Dell Computer, for example — are hoping that the soon-to-be-released Windows XP will help pull their chestnuts out of the fire by kick-starting dormant sales.”