Expect several months of sparring as parties react to one another's positions in the Microsoft monopoly case. The Department of Justice has recommended to District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft be broken into two companies (one for operating systems and one for applications). Microsoft has filed its objections and recommended less onerous remedies, such as allowing PC manufacturers to change the opening page, providing the operating system without a browser as an option, not promoting third-party software through Windows in exchange for developers agreeing to limit distribution on non-Microsoft platforms, not withholding the release of a commercially ready application on a non-Windows platform to punish the platform vendor, and not trying to extinguish the market for older versions of Windows by charging original equipment manufacturers more for those versions after it has released a new version of Windows.
Jackson will likely wait till fall to hand down his opinion regarding the remedies. Thereafter, the DOJ will seek to have any appeal go directly to the Supreme Court, and Microsoft will want to lengthen the appeals process. If Jackson orders a breakup, it would not occur before Microsoft exhausts all appeals. The industry forecasts that DOJ and Microsoft will be in court another two, to three years, and that Microsoft may exchange some ,of its practices during that time so that it can argue that the original case brought by DOJ no longer has merit
