It’s about time.

Microsoft will return some of its cash hoard (Mercury News) to the money’s owners: shareholders. On Tuesday, the company announced a $75 billion set of payments, share repurchases and other measures designed to whack away at its absurdly high cash position, well over $50 billion and growing by about $1 billion a month.

Wall Street mavens have been urging such a move for some time. With legal troubles down to a manageable level, Microsoft says it now can afford to do the right thing.

Of course, the special dividend and buyback only highlight the fact that Microsoft still has scant competition, largely because the U.S. government has given it a pass to continue abusing its monopoly. Yet competition is better served with that money in shareholders’ pockets than Microsoft’s bank account. [Dan Gillmor’s eJournal]