Wide open frontiers in new industries -- for Gates in computer software, for Rockefeller in the turbulent 19th century oil fields -- led to market dominance that crushed rivals, said Ron Chernow, author of "Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller Sr."

Only a landmark Supreme Court decision jarred loose competition in Rockefeller's time.

"There is a popular idea that free markets exist as a state of nature. But when we look at capitalism in a state of nature in the Rockefeller story, we see that it leads to monopoly," he told Reuters in an interview.

"That's what we're seeing now with Gates."

If history repeats itself, Chernow said, Microsoft could lose in court and still overshadow the software industry.

Standard Oil broke up after the1911 antitrust decision, but its offspring -- among them Mobil, Amoco, Exxon and Chevron -- are still among the world's biggest oil companies.

Chernow, 49, spent five years writing the 774-page biography of Rockefeller. A business genius who combined homespun Baptist pieties with ruthless cunning, the enigmatic Rockefeller became a byword for big money and then gave most of away as a pioneer in modern philanthropy.

Published by Random House, "Titan" has been hailed by critics. Reviewer Jack Beatty, writing in The New York Times Review of Books, called it "a triumph of the art of biography."

The book's release this month at a time when Microsoft faces a possible major antitrust suit has added a compelling element to Rockefeller's story.

Working with a 1,700-page transcript of an unpublished Rockefeller interview found in the family papers, Chernow dug out so many details that Rockefeller's portrait feels more like a hologram.

Rockefeller held that monopoly -- or what he called"cooperation" -- was vital to tame a wild new industry.

"We were all in a sinking ship if competition continued," Rockefeller told his interviewer, "and we were trying to build a lifeboat to the shore."

But, the ruthlessness Chernow depicts is a distant echo at best to today's talk about possible monopolistic practices at Microsoft.

"People think Bill Gates is rough," he said. "But he's a powder puff compared with Rockefeller."

Rockefeller, who died in 1937 at age 97, used bare-knuckle tactics that put a stranglehold on the US oil industry.

He cut secret rebate deals with railroads that shipped his oil and bought up entire valleys to block the paths of rival pipelines. Standard Oil bribed lawmakers and squeezed banks to stop lending money to competitors.

He kept oil prices high enough to guarantee healthy profits, but not high enough to make potential rivals think it was worthwhile to challenge his 90 per cent control of the business. His obsession with market share has made him an idol toJapanese business leaders.

Chernow, who also wrote award-winning books on the Morgan and Warburg banking dynasties, added that Gates does not face the popular outrage fed by muckraking reporters that spurred Standard Oil's breakup.

"Americans still associate Bill Gates with the resurgence of American industry ... and they look at Microsoft as a source of national pride," he said.