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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Ng who wrote (40025)	3/28/2000 12:54:00 AM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Microsoft Vs. DOJ Microsoft-DOJ Negotiations Are Not Over Sources Say DOJ Looking For Microsoft To Clarify Certain Issues By Darryl K. Taft, Computer Reseller News Washington,D.C. 12:22 PM EST Mon., Mar. 27, 2000 Though the government has rejected Microsoft Corp.'s latest offer to settle its landmark antitrust case, negotiations are not yet over, said sources close to the case. The U.S. Department of Justice and attorneys general for 19 states that are suing Microsoft mulled over the software giant's settlement proposal during the weekend and found it lacking in certain areas, although the proposal showed that the company is serious about trying to settle, sources said. The Department Of Justice and Microsoft both refuse to comment on the status of the negotiations. Microsoft has offered to eliminate any type of discriminatory pricing of its operating system software to OEMs and to open up its Windows APIs to OEMs and third-party software suppliers, sources said. The Wall Street Journal also reported Monday that Microsoft offered to decouple the Internet Explorer browser from Windows and to allow OEMs to install a competing browser. Government attorneys considered the proposal, delivered Friday, to be a good first step but were looking for Microsoft to clarify certain issues, particularly about opening the Windows APIs and about future integration of software components with Windows, sources said. Last week U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who is presiding over the case, moved the settlement process forward by threatening to rule on the case this week as early as tomorrow if significant progress was not made toward a settlement. The overtures by Microsoft, given clarification of government concerns, could be enough delay the judge's ruling, sources said. Significant for Microsoft in the settlement proposal is the impact it could have on Windows 2000, where the company is making a more concerted push into the enterprise. The Justice Department, sources said, is intent on avoiding what it sees as the mistakes of a 1995 consent decree, which is what brought the parties to court in this case after the government charged Microsoft with violating that decree in 1997. Former U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin opposed that decree. The Washington Post quoted Sporkin, who is now in private practice, as saying that he felt the 1995 decree needed more teeth and required more oversight by the government. In essence, Sporkin said, the current case could have been avoided.