And oh, what a glorious day it was; we hereby declare April 3rd to be Microsoft Smackdown Day, from now unto the end of time-- or at least until the actual remedies are announced. As you all know by the mangled corpses lining Wall Street, Judge Jackson has issued his conclusions of law, and the only ones surprised by the verdict are the jurors from the O.J. trial. Yes, the Redmond Juggernaut has been found to have violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by trying to extend its OS monopoly into the web browser market through the illegal tying of Internet Explorer to Windows. And when the word came down, the clouds parted, the sun shone through, a choir of angels sang, and "Redmond Justice" fans all over the world geared up for a night of partying that made Oscar night look like a quilting bee.

See, what's truly wonderful about this verdict is not so much that Microsoft received the legal equivalent of a vicious beatdown-- it didn't, really. After all, the judge did side with Microsoft on at least one point: Jackson ruled that the company's "exclusive distribution agreements" with PC manufacturers didn't illegally prevent Netscape from competing. No, what's great about the verdict is that it's a verdict, and not a settlement. A settlement would have meant that the party's over, but a bona fide verdict means that "Redmond Justice" will be on the air for a long, long time. Now we can look forward to hearings prior to the sentencing, the announcement of the remedies determined by the court, and a really lengthy appeals process-- not to mention all those dozens of other antitrust lawsuits filed against Microsoft, which can now use the "Redmond Justice" verdict as ammo. Three cheers for the byzantine and often-glacial U.S. justice system!

As usual, faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil has the goods when it comes to the best "Redmond Justice" action; he recommends the New York Times summary of how Jackson ruled. If Info McNuggets won't satisfy you and you really want to dig into the guts of the verdict, the Times also has the complete text of Jackson's conclusions of law. And for those of you who aren't convinced that this has anything to do with our favorite computer company, you should know that Apple's mentioned eleven times in Jackson's ruling. After all, we're just one big happy cast in the drama of technology...

We know some of you out there are tired of all the antitrust drama on AtAT, and we can understand that. Sometimes it's easy to forget just how deeply Apple is involved in the whole "Redmond Justice" imbroglio. Let's recap, shall we? At issue in the case is the way that Microsoft allegedly threatened to kill the Mac version of Office unless Apple made Internet Explorer the default web browser on the Mac. There's also the way in which Microsoft tried to strong-arm Apple into ceasing development of QuickTime-- to "knife the baby." Avie Tevanian, Steve's right-hand man, testified on the stand about these actions, as one of the government's ten trial witnesses. And it's even been reported that, way back when, Steve Jobs himself offered to donate millions of dollars of his own money to help the cause if the Justice Department would get off its kiester and go after Microsoft. Yup-- in a way, Steve himself is the producer of "Redmond Justice."

So what's Apple's official reaction to Judge Jackson's conclusions of law? According to MacWEEK, it's a simple "no comment." Personally, though, we wish we'd heard that "no comment" ourselves, because we bet we could have learned a lot from the tone of voice with which it was delivered. Not to mention the party hat being worn by the giddy spokesperson who delivered it. Even though we've yet to hear exactly how the government plans to prevent Microsoft from acting this way again (if the phrase "consent decree" is any part of the remedies, we'll scream), right now we can only suspect that Steve feels he's already gotten his money's worth. If nothing else, he got to see Microsoft's worth drop $79 billion in a day. What's more entertaining than that?

And hey now, this is interesting. You know that last-ditch settlement offer that Microsoft faxed to the government late last week? Apparently the New York Times claims that the government showed "elements" of that proposal to both Steve Jobs and Sun's Scott McNealy to get their opinions. What Steve said is, unsurprisingly, kept under wraps, but at least McNealy's overt anti-Microsoft streak gave us his reaction: "What I heard was worse than weak." We're assuming that Steve concurred, but of course he's not exactly in a position to damn Microsoft in public. It's a fun exercise for the viewer, though.

With Netscape about to issue its first major browser release since the AOL buyout, it may be worthwhile to think about what's really at the heart of the matter in the "Redmond Justice" case: Microsoft vs. Netscape duking it out for the hearts, minds, and clicks of the Internet browser market. And regardless of how the case turns out, there's little doubt that if Microsoft hurt Netscape (illegally or not), the damage is done. Netscape's software was once dominant, even though it "cost" $30 and Microsoft's alternative was free; but with virtually limitless resources at its disposal (and an operating system monopoly to abuse), eventually Redmond was able to turn the tables. These days, with something like a 70% share of the market, Internet Explorer is squarely in the lead.

Now, many of you are going to tell us that it should have more market share, because IE is the better browser. That may be true-- these days. After all, when was the last time Netscape issued a major release of Navigator? 4.0 came out when, in 1997? Everything since then's just been minor improvements. In terms of features, look-and-feel, etc. Microsoft first had to play catch-up, and is now way out in front. But could that have happened if the company didn't have ways of coercing the use of those earlier, decidedly ickier versions of the product to grow its market share? Most people think IE5 is the best browser available for the Mac, hands down. But who remembers IE3? Or even IE2? The word "yuck" comes to mind. In fact, we never would have used Internet Explorer at all, had Apple not been forced to include it as the standard browser on new Macs. Think how much more that bundling concept applies to the Windows camp. They bought share, and time to improve a product that should otherwise have been laughed off the market when it first appeared. (Hmmm, who remembers those pre-3.0 versions of Windows? See any parallels?)

So, Netscape lost and sold out to AOL. For those of us still using Netscape browsers, our best available option is Communicator 4.72-- which, frankly, we don't feel to be much different from 4.0. (Oooo, AOL Instant Messenger is now part of the download. Pinch us, we're dreaming.) Our brief foray into using builds of the Mozilla 5.0 open-source browser project were uninspiring, to say the least. And as we await the unveiling of Netscape 6.0 (due on Wednesday, according to a Reuters story), we can't help but feel that we're going to be underwhelmed. (Plus, who knows how long we Mac users will have to wait before being able to use it anyway?) Still, we're pinning our hopes on Netscape 6, and hoping that iCab gains full Javascript and CSS support soon...