This just in. (Long Read)

The Appeals court has ruled against the break up of Microsoft. Full Story Below

WASHINGTON, June 28 —  The U.S. Court of Appeals Thursday overturned a lower court’s ruling to break up Microsoft Corp. for violation of antitrust laws.
       THE RULING NOW sends the case back to a lower court to decide what kind of penalty would be appropriate. The ruling also throws out the charge that Microsoft attempted to monopolize the browser market. In addition, the ruling removes the case from the original trial judge because of his biased remarks toward the company.
       (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
       The appeals court ruled that U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson improperly conducted himself in the case, leaving himself open to the appearance he was biased against Microsoft.    
Microsoft ruling

•   Read the U.S. Court of Appeals June 28 ruling.        “We vacate the judgment on remedies, because the trial judge engaged in impermissible ex parte contacts by holding secret interviews with members of the media and made numerous offensive comments about Microsoft officials in public statements outside of the courtroom, giving rise to an appearance of partiality,” the court said.    
             “Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process,” the court added.
       The ruling was unanimous, by a 7-0 vote.
       Jackson ruled Microsoft had engaged in anti-competitive practices by packaging its Windows operating system with its Explorer Web browser. He concluded the company was an illegal monopoly and ordered the software giant broken into two as a penalty.
       By vacating the ruling, the appeals court sent the case back to the lower court but ordered that a different judge handle the decision on how to punish Microsoft.
        Key rulings in the Microsoft case
•   Judge Jackson’s final judgement order
•   Conclusions of law and final order
•   Court\'s findings of fact
•   All documents relating to DOJ\'s contempt case against Microsoft for violating the 1995 consent decree.
•   Class action lawsuits against Microsoft stemming from the antitrust trial’s guilty verdict.
       
THE LONG ROAD HOME       
   The Appeals Court ruling today is just the latest leg in Microsoft’s torturous antitrust relay race. Some legs of that race were won, others lost while other legs seemed like they would never end. And even with today’s ruling, the race is far from over.
       The Justice Department, 18 states and the District of Columbia brought suit against Microsoft in May of 1998 alleging the company had violated antitrust laws. The suit claimed Microsoft held monopoly power in the Windows desktop market and that the company illegally leveraged that power to force computer makers to accept its nascent and then inferior Internet Explorer web browser as a part of the Windows Operating system. The move, the suit said, was a deliberate effort to choke off competition from upstart and chief rival Netscape Communications. Microsoft believed that Netscape’s own browser could be adopted by software developers as an alternative platform from which to launch web-based or so-called “middleware” applications, thus rendering Windows nothing more than a commodity.
Microsoft breakup vacated
June 28, 2001 — The U.S. Appeals Court has vacated the Microsoft breakup ruling. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.
       The Justice Department also claimed that when Microsoft made its Internet Explorer Web browser an inseparable part of Windows, it was illegally “tying” the browser to Windows. This, the Justice Department said, is illegal because it forces consumers and computer makers to install the Microsoft browser even if they didn’t want it.
       Justice claimed that there was no technological benefit from such “tying” and that it was done simply to drive the cost of browser products to zero, and make it difficult, if not impossible, for others like Netscape to charge for their browser products.
       According to the Justice Department, Microsoft deliberately set out to crush Netscape and sought to “cut off its air supply” by illegally using strong-arm tactics, from exclusionary contracts with computer makers and Internet service providers to rigging Microsoft software so it wouldn’t work with competing products.
       From day one Microsoft has vigorously denied all those charges. Indeed, throughout the trial the company said it had a right to compete in the marketplace. Microsoft said that building the browser into the operating system was simply a matter of software evolution, done to enhance the product and provide consumers with a better Internet experience.
       Microsoft said then and still maintains that it has no monopoly. Indeed, the company’s own economic expert steadfastly refused to define any “relevant market” for operating systems, insisting that the company couldn’t monopolize because competitors to Windows were lurking everywhere.
       “The biggest threat is from the [competitor] you can’t see,” said Microsoft’s economic expert, Richard Schmalensee, dean of the Sloan School of Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
       The trial, originally scheduled to take six to eight weeks, consumed nearly 80 days of courtroom testimony over nine contentious and rancorous months. Each side submitted a mountain of internal e-mail and confidential documents to make its case and called 12 witnesses and three rebuttal witnesses each, per limits set by the judge. Though he did not testify in the trial, Gates was represented by some 20 hours of videotaped testimony that was entered into evidence.
       In contrast, the government’s antitrust case against IBM stumbled through 13 years of tedium before the Justice Department eventually dropped the case with no resolution.
       Judge Jackson’s official analysis of the relevant evidence presented during trial, called “findings of fact” blistered Microsoft’s executives and business practices. Jackson’s scorched earth document left even veteran trial watchers breathless in the harshness of its language. Jackson called Microsoft “predatory” and that it had visited “violence” on the marketplace and consumers in a ruthless and reckless leveraging of its Windows monopoly.
       Jackson then later bought the Justice department’s proposal to split the company in two, a penalty that experts have called “the death penalty” under antitrust laws.
       But Microsoft quickly appealed that finding and in fact, had been looking past Jackson late in the trial phase when it became apparent that the company would lose its in his court room.

What are your thoughts on this?

This was taken from a Yahoo news articles

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the conclusion that Microsoft violated antitrust laws but ordered that a new judge decide what penalty the company should face"

They ain\'t gonna walk %100. There will be a penalty.

Money Talk$
I guess Bill can buy his sorry punk a$$ out of this

Originally said by some b/tch-ass whore
Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process

Tell me how THAT\'S legal.  No evidence and yet they still overturned the decision.  Hell, I can question everything from "why is the sky blue" to "How come gravity pulls down" but that doesn\'t make any of it wrong.