Yes, antitrust cases usually are long, protracted matters, but this might be a bit of an exception, you know. Going to trial 4 months after the suit was filed is not antitrust in the AT&T/IBM mold. My personal prediction: Jackson goes against Microsoft, overridden in the D.C. Circuit, up to the Supreme Court, which I wouldn't handicap. All within a year, unless it gets bounced back down to the trial judge a couple of times. There's likely to be injunctive relief soon enough, but it'll probably get stayed too. Remedies are hypothetical.
All I'll say about the Supreme Court is I don't think they are as conservative as the D.C. Circuit. The Chicago School interpretation is very popular among the lower levels of the federal judiciary, but I wouldn't be so sure that the highest level is yet ready to throw out the law as written. Those appointments tend to be a bit more visible than the lower court ones, and ideological conformity is a bit harder to ensure at that level. We'll find out soon enough.
Of course, I've always been more interested in hearts and minds on this. Somehow, "honesty" in the Microsoft style on these matters doesn't seem to be quite the image one would prefer to present to the public. I've said before, the Intel style of "let the lawyers handle it" seems more appropriate, and at least as effective legally. Not Bill's style, of course. Intel also replaced all those early Pentiums with the obscure floating point bug, Microsoft is working hard at UCC article 2B, in lieu of actually shipping software that "sucks less". It's what the customers want, though.
Cheers, Dan. |
