Court Seeks Deal Between Microsoft, Justice
W A S H I N G T O N, D.C., Sept. 28 -- The new judge in the Microsoft antitrust case today urged the parties to make a renewed effort to settle the four-year-old dispute.
At a hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said several times that the software giant and the Justice Department should make an active effort to reach agreement.
The judge, in a written order following the hearing, cited the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as reason to speed toward a resolution. "The court cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of making these efforts to settle the cases and resolve the parties' differences in this time of rapid national change," wrote Kollar-Kotelly.
The developments follows a recent decision by the Justice Department to drop plans to split up the company. Government prosecutors said they would instead seek to limit the firm's anticompetitive practices. Microsoft's Windows operating system runs on more than 80 percent of personal computers.
Kollar-Kotelly gave the parties until Nov. 2 to reach a deal. She also indicated that she would appoint a mediator if the parties failed to settle on their own by Oct. 12 — a tactic that failed once before, wire reports said.
If there was no settlement by November, a hearing would follow Nov. 5. The government would then have until Dec. 7 to put forth a proposed remedy, with Microsoft having until Dec. 12 to respond. A followup hearing would be held around March 11. The Supreme Court could, in the interim, take up the case, but experts are believed to consider that unlikely.
"Good luck with settlement efforts," Kollar-Kotelly told the parties as the proceeding ended.
Earlier Ruling Found Monopoly
Kollar-Kotelly took over the case after a federal appeals court tossed out an earlier ruling to split up the company, along with the judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, who had ordered it.
In its June 28 ruling, the federal appeals court did uphold Jackson's finding that Microsoft had illegally taken advantage of its operating systems monopoly. It then left to be resolved by Kollar-Kotelly whether or not Microsoft can legitimately "bundle" programs (such as its Internet Explorer browser) into its operating systems.
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