Could 2QFY99 Moody's OS warning to AAPL be the Mediator's threshold ?
Moody's ranked AAPL loan papers , warning a OS entry against MSFT would burn cash , and result in a AAPL "rating" failure .
Enter the "Findings of Fact" and the Mediator's appointment with the parties' acceptance which was followed by a invitation by Judge Jackson to Harvard Professor Leesing for a "historical" brief ,... but can he (Prof Leesing) use his Mac this time without a MSFT objection ?
Wash Post article on the Mediator's appointment illustrates Judge Jackson's sense of balance :
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" In mediating a settlement, some legal experts believe Posner might lean
more toward structural changes at Microsoft that would require one-time
government intervention instead of ongoing regulation of the firm's
activities. "He doesn't like regulation," said Mark Schechter, a former
federal antitrust attorney. "He'll look for something that's
self-executing."
But Posner does not have a natural distaste for monopolies ? a fact that
could lean in Microsoft's favor.
In the abstract to his latest book, he wrote: "The evils of natural
monopoly are exaggerated, the effectiveness of regulation in controlling
them is highly questionable, and regulation costs a great deal."
In a separate court order issued yesterday, Jackson set a schedule for
the filing of additional legal briefs, suggesting that any talks would
not delay the proceedings.
The judge also invited Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig to write a
"friend of the court" brief summarizing his views of the case. Jackson
had appointed Lessig, who had worked as a law clerk for Posner, to be a
"special master" to weed through complex factual issues in a previous
legal fight between the government and Microsoft.
The company accused Lessig of being biased, citing an electronic mail
message he wrote saying that he "sold my soul" by installing Microsoft's
Internet browsing software. Lessig's appointment eventually was rejected
by an appeals court.
washingtonpost.com
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Wonder if SJ's comment "there are two desktop Operating Systems ; Windows with 95% of the market and Mac with ALL the rest " will be included in Prof. Leesing's brief ?
Jim K. |
