If you've been following "Redmond Justice" lately, you know that on last Friday's episode, the government officially filed a proposal for the breakup of Microsoft into two distinct companies. You may feel that the government's plan will prevent further abuses of monopoly power. Contrariwise, you might think that splitting up Microsoft will be kind of like when Mickey cut up the brooms in Fantasia, and soon we're just going to have two brooms causing trouble. (We at AtAT lean more towards the latter opinion, and had been holding out hope for a remedy calling for lethal injections for all Microsoft executives. Well, except for maybe the Macintosh Business Unit, who should emerge unscathed.) Either way, though, you have to admit-- it's a heck of a plot twist.

Now, the next scheduled event in this long-running series is slotted for May 10th, which is the deadline by which Microsoft will have to submit its response to the government's remedy proposal. But get this-- Microsoft says it needs more time. According to a Wired article, spokesman Jim Cullinan said the company will ask for an extension in order to prepare a "detailed defense" against the breakup plan. Microsoft's legal team will file its objections on May 10th, as scheduled, but will also ask for more time to "gather data and detail its opposition." So just because Microsoft was found guilty several weeks ago, don't start thinking it'll all be over soon. "There could be hearings and witnesses with examination and cross-examination"-- in other words, a post-trial trial. And if the judge agrees to kick Microsoft a little more time, "it could postpone a final remedy for months." Stall tactics, anyone?

Of course, if Microsoft would just get on the stick, the company wouldn't need an extension. The government's brief was filed on Friday, right? Well, on Tuesday Cullinan said that Microsoft had "not started even looking into the details of their proposal." Oh, come on, guys-- what have you been doing for the past four days? Okay, granted, there were new shows on Fox last Sunday night, but still, that's three hours out of ninety-six. We bet they spent all that time trying to fix a corrupted Registry or resolving an IRQ conflict...