“In plain English,” he replied, “yes.”To grasp the extent of Microsoft’s commercial might, to have some sense of why Bill Gates is worth $40bn, imagine a computer-operating system to be the engine of a car. Then imagine that, with a few quirky exceptions such as a Morgan or a Ferrari, every car had the same engine. In the real- life computer world, that company is Microsoft and the engine is called Windows 95. That means that the manufacturers of the 150 million PCs run by Windows systems have been virtually turned into resellers of Microsoft goods.

All they contribute is the packaging.The Internet Explorer programme Judge Jackson ordered to be removed from Windows 95 to give some of Microsoft’s aspirant competitors a chance to stay in the chase, is like a car’s tyres. It is the software component that makes it possible to travel in the World Wide Web – known as a browser.Microsoft, so clever and so big, failed to realise at first that there was a lot more to a PC than a glorified typewriter-cum-calculator. Netscape, by contrast, quickly latched on to the vast commercial potential of the Internet. Three years ago, Netscape’s Navigator was virtually unchallenged as the net world’s favourite browser.Microsoft came up with its Internet Explorer only in the middle of 1995, and immediately made it standard with Windows 95. Suddenly, the buyer of a PC acquired not only a Microsoft engine but the Microsoft tyres too. The Department of Justice in America decided to draw a line, and last October Janet Reno, the Attorney General, ruled that by obliging computer manufacturers to include Internet Explorer with Windows 95, Microsoft had violated a 1994 decree barring the company from bundling any new product into its operating systems.Joel Klein, one of Ms Reno’s top lieutenants in the justice department, described Microsoft as “the enemy of choice”.

On 11 December Judge Jackson backed the government’s position. This week he is expected to decide whether to hold Microsoft in contempt of court for violating his order. In March the case goes to the federal court of appeals.But there is much more at stake than the matter of an Internet browser. Bill Gates’s plans go far beyond swallowing the Netscape minnow and entrenching his dominance over the PC software market. The outcome of the current legal dispute will set a precedent that may determine whether his dreams of global expansion can be fulfilled. If he loses, the government and the courts will be emboldened to strike against Microsoft again. If he wins, and defeats the government of the most powerful nation on earth, his ambition will know no bounds.The next frontier he seeks to conquer is television.

Last year Microsoft bought a $1bn, 10 per cent share in Comcast, one of America’s biggest cable TV companies; and $452m purchased outright Web TV, a service that provides Internet access via a television screen.The beauty of the enterprise is that whereas only 40 per cent of Americans own PCs – a figure that appears unlikely to grow in the short term – everyone owns a television. Cable TV, furthermore, provides a web connection so fast that once it takes hold as the dominant medium of Internet access, web-surfers will look back and wonder how they ever endured the tedium of waiting for today’s telephone line connection to kick in.Having secured the engine and the tyre market, Bill Gates now wants control of the roads. Once the goal has been achieved, he will be able to charge tolls – the cable subscription rates – and to set up roadside shopping malls. Already he has created his own Microsoft travel agency, Expedia, which allows on-line purchases of holidays by credit card.