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Two's Still Company (5/25/00)
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Well, if you were hoping for even smaller bite-size chunks of Microsoft in your cereal bowl, you may be disappointed. Behind-the-scenes sources on the set of "Redmond Justice" report that, despite Judge Jackson's strong hints that the government's cleaned-up remedy proposal should include an action-packed three-way corporate split, the government's opting for a less drastic rewrite and sticking with the original "cut 'em in half" plot. We won't know until the show airs sometime Friday, of course, but a Bloomberg News article claims to have the inside scoop on the last-minute script massaging.
Personally, we can't help but wonder if the government's toned-down breakup plan is meant to protect its case from the judge's arguably overzealous actions. Remember, this case is going to be appealed, and the more strident the remedy, the more likely Microsoft will be able to get an appeals court to overturn the ruling. Does anyone remember the last time Jackson smacked Microsoft down? His preliminary injunction barring Microsoft from tying Internet Explorer to Windows was crushed into dust by the appellate court, who cited "procedural errors" made by the judge in that case.
Jackson's lucky to have gotten a second chance to smite the Redmond Beast, but given that he just flat-out denied Microsoft six more months of hearings to debate the merits of a breakup, some might think he's just begging for another appeals reversal. Given the "no more process" mandate, we figure the government's a little concerned about what the appeals court will say when Microsoft goes crying about due process, so they're sticking with a more conservative two-way breakup than the judge's preferred three-company disarmament plan in hopes that it's more likely to stand on appeal. Clever, no? Here's hoping it doesn't tick off the judge too much-- but then again, he's awful cute when he's angry.
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SceneLink (2319)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/25/00 episode: May 25, 2000: It's IBM to the rescue-- but will the next PowerBook sport an SOI-enhanced G4, or "merely" a 700 MHz G3? Meanwhile, German ad agency Springer & Jacoby "apologizes" to Apple, and the government plans to keep its two-way Microsoft breakup plan in spite of the judge's preference for three Baby Bills instead...
Other scenes from that episode: 2317: Revenge Is Sweet (5/25/00) Loath as we are to lay problems on a scapegoat, we're going to do it anyway: we officially pronounce Motorola to be the bane of Apple's existence. We are now more convinced than ever that the PowerPC's relative stagnation is some kind of intricate vengeance against Steve Jobs for killing the Mac clone market and sticking Motorola with the loss on all those StarMax units... 2318: Whole Lotta Love (5/25/00) The Springer & Jacoby saga continues, as the German ad agency who misappropriated Apple's trademark in a jab at Windows users issues a public "apology." For those of you who missed it, a couple of weeks ago (at the height of the ILOVEYOU virus panic) the agency took out a full-page ad in a major German newspaper that simply said "Dear Windows User: We Love You!"...
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