The stockmarket will probably reward tech stocks for this, consider the following:

Microsoft has a huge P/E ratio (price to earning ratio) meaning the ratio of its worth to its earnings is insane...

this decision, in the minds of the stock brokers, means that revenue is going to shift between MS and other companies.

But those other companies have lower P/E rations, and hence for less money down, you get more of the profit... this is a good thing...

and when people compete for stocks, stocks rise.

when stocks rise, people buy them for their own sake. Yes this can be taken too far, but also realize that there are a lot of undervalued stocks in the tech industry.

For example (mind that I am a linux user) Be Inc.

Be is the prime example of a company that stands to win as a result of this decision. So will the clueful analysts attest. The clueless ones will not understand that there is a huge gap between standing to win and winning, and will buy the stock anyway...

but then again, just like the stock market, everything I said here is pure speculation

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde