What's the only power on earth that seems capable of bending Microsoft to its will? It's certain-ly not the Justice Department's antitrust division, to which Microsoft isn't giving an inch. Or Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, whose ruling that Microsoft is a vicious monopolist hasn't exactly excited bouts of introspection in Redmond. Or even the cybervandals who last week transformed Microsoft Outlook from an e-mail program into a virus vector. So what mighty force can master Microsoft? Give up? It's the accounting geeks at the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Mi-crosoft recently gave away about $1.4 billion of value to its employ-ees to stay on the right side of an FASB rule that would otherwise have devastated Microsoft's reported profits.
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