Pick up any business magazine and you'll read that innovation in technology has slowed. But we see quite a different story. I can assure you that we've had no shortage of new products and technologies passing through PC Magazine Labs, nor have we had a lack of new things to see on our travels across the country.

In fact, when assembling this year's Awards for Technical Excellence, we had an abundance of choices. Some of the technologies are aimed at the traditional PC—making it faster or more secure. Others are aimed at server-side applications, such as those designed to make servers self-healing or make server applications work better together. Then there are products that extend PCs and handhelds in new ways, such as devices that combine cell-phone, PDA, and e-mail capabilities, or PC operating systems with tablet features.

As always, we based our decisions on technical innovation, not necessarily choosing the best products of the year. (We'll cover those in our next issue.) There was plenty of innovation in 2002.

DOJ Convicts Microsoft: Ho-Hum

After more than five years, two judges, hundreds of hours of courtroom testimony, thousands of hours of work, and millions of dollars in legal fees, the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft is finally over. Some states are still talking about appeals, but that's highly unlikely to happen. So after all that effort, what do the changes amount to? Not much.

Microsoft is now a convicted monopoly. Ho-hum. Didn't we already know Microsoft had a monopoly on desktop operating systems before all this started? Microsoft still holds that monopoly, and it's stronger than ever. Microsoft is also dominant in office suites, and the company's shares of the server and handheld markets have increased despite competition from Linux and Palm.

As a result of the settlement, Microsoft has to offer equitable pricing for its operating systems. This means it can offer quantity discounts—but not special pricing—to its friends. And it must reveal that pricing to its system-vendor customers. In practice, this certainly is not going to lower the cost of Windows.

Microsoft also must disclose certain APIs used by its middleware, such as Windows Media Player and other applications that appear as separate features within the Windows OS. That's good, but Microsoft built Windows in large part by attracting programmers to its platform, so opening up these APIs isn't going to change much.