As Microsoft's monopoly crumbles, its mobile future is crucial

ZDNet - After nearly a decade, Microsoft’s reign as a monopoly is over.

The consent decree in U.S. v. Microsoft expired last month, officially removing Microsoft from antitrust scrutiny by the United States Department of Justice. And the latest real-world data on web usage confirms that Microsoft’s once-dominant position in the world of personal computing is crumbling.

For the past four years, I’ve collected semi-annual snapshots of web usage from Net Market Share. The data for the first half of 2011 tell an ominous story for Microsoft. See for yourself: