Microsoft chooses to wield its power for Good. (Commentary).

It's finally time to holler a few cheers for one of the greatest industrial bullies of all time.

Microsoft Corp., which dominates the personal computer business with its Windows operating system, has just shown it can use its monopoly for good.

By eliminating stock options as a means of paying its employees and instead giving them shares of the company's stock, the software giant may force others in the computer industry to follow suit. This would have them adopt more honest accounting for their earnings in the bargain while at the same time persuading investors to invest rather than speculate.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer aren't on a crusade: They simply are trying to solve an internal compensation problem. Microsoft made millionaires of employees of all rank during the stock market bubble by giving them options.

But the market turned awful, Microsoft shares are down 54 percent from their 1999 peak and the company says about 88 percent 01 the options its employees hold can't be exercised at a profit.

While Microsoft stock may never soar as it once did, the granted shares, unlike options, should always have value. Microsoft will benefit too. Accounting rules require that stock grants be expensed immediately on an income statement while the costs of options can be ignored except in footnotes to financial reports.

While the accounting profession inevitably will force companies to highlight the cost of options -- in reaction to protests over executives reaping millions from options while earnings and share prices drop -- other computer-related companies keep lobbying hard against the idea.

The only rational reason these companies can offer is that the cost of options is hard to estimate and -- unless one formula is prescribed for all -- subject to finagling.

Microsoft inadvertently may also be showing the value of investing in companies that not only have a future but also a present -- in the form of dividend payments. Stock options were all about capital gains. The total return on shares given to employees will depend more or dividends -- and companies that use grants are likely to make higher payments to shareholders.

Microsoft paid its first dividend in March and its annual rate of 8 cents a share amount to a yield of just 0.29 percent. Analysts say the company now will probably use part of its $46 billion cash hoard to increase those payments.

Here's hoping other companies keep resisting Microsoft's roughshod ways in the computer business -- but quickly follow its new pay formula.

David Pauly is a columnist for Bloomberg News.