Microsoft Appeals Anti-Trust to Supreme Court

wicket2001 writes "The AP is reporting that Microsoft has appealed their anti-trust case to the Supreme Court. Microsoft sent the petition to the high court two days before the case was to be sent to a new judge to decide what penalty the Redmond, Wash., firm should face."

Comments

Re:Absolutely baffling

[Todd Knarr]

They're worried that they might be facing an injunction against shipping WinXP with everything they want buried in it, one forcing them to either not ship or make those things modular so they can be replaced by the consumer if they choose. They figure that by appealing to the Supremes now they can freeze the case's return to the District Court level and any possibility of an injunction until after they've shipped WinXP the way they want it, and that once the thing's in the field it'll be too late for the District Court to do anything about it. IOW, they want to stall until they can present the court with a fair accompli.

Re:It's all about timing

[elmegil]

I don't think you understand the legal process very well. Right now, M$ is just asking the Supreme Court to hear their case. That's called a petition for cert (which is short for some latin technical term I can't remember how to spell :-). The Court *does* typically make decisions on cert requests reasonably quickly, so unless they *agree* to hear the case at this point, it's unlikely to be a major delay. Given the situation, many of us agree that it's bloody unlikely for them to hear this case at this time. So it'll go one where the circuit court sent it.

Re:Why this should come as no surprise

[Lumpish Scholar]

They know that if they can roll out XP and .NET before the district court can stop them it will be too late.

So it's completely predictable that they would have taken this step (and others) to try to delay the courts.

What I hadn't heard predicted, though, is that they also may ship XP next month! "Microsoft could send PC makers the final--or gold--code for Windows XP as early as Aug. 15 ... [and] would allow PC makers to sell systems with Windows XP installed in September."

Anything to beat the clock and dodge the bullet.