Most Mac users concerned with Microsoft antitrust issues lately have been focusing on how the company proposes to settle a bunch of private lawsuits by donating a ton of free software to schools-- and you're right to be concerned, because a move like that could sweep Apple clean out of the education market while breeding a new generation of Borg-assimilated computer users who think style, attention to detail, and decent human interface are all prohibited by law. The only scarier future we can imagine is one in which the entire planet is ruled by talking apes... and given Steve Ballmer's rather dubious evolutionary status, the latter may well spring from the former.

However, while the private antitrust settlement proposal is pretty key right now, don't forget about "Redmond Justice"! Yes, the feds caved in and settled the case, as did half of the states who were in on the suit, but there are still nine states sticking it out and demanding a harsher penalty for Microsoft than a slap on the wrist. The good news is that those states have finally pieced together their plan, and as reported in a Wall Street Journal article pointed out by faithful viewer Mike Dini, Apple may stand to benefit directly from the proposal. Apparently one of the terms is that Microsoft keep developing Mac versions of Office, a potentially important demand because the original five-year Apple-Microsoft agreement which stipulated the continuation of Office for the Mac just happens to expire in August.

So if this proposed remedy plan goes through, those of you who like Office can look forward to many more years of upgrades; personally, we suspect that Microsoft would continue releasing new Mac versions of Office regardless, because by all accounts the company makes some pretty good money off of us Mac users. Personally, we think that's the least significant clause in the states' remedy plan; the requirement that Microsoft ship a Linux version of Office stands to shake things up a bit more. And let's not forget the stipulations that Microsoft open-source Internet Explorer, make available a version of Windows without bundled applications, and put a fully-compliant version of Java back into Windows XP. Heck, it's no breakup, but it's a lot more interesting than the "we promise we'll behave from now on" settlement that the Justice Department accepted.

Microsoft will soon have a chance to argue against these remedies, and you can expect them to argue hard-- especially since, according to a CNET article sent to us by faithful viewer chollyhead, the proposed penalty should Microsoft fail to comply with the remedies is the forced open-sourcing of Windows itself. Yowza! As one antitrust lawyer puts it, "It's inconceivable to me that Microsoft would agree to that unless and until it had lost in the trial court, lost in the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court had denied an appeal, and the sun and the moon were properly aligned." Well, let's see, here... Microsoft did lose in trial court, it did lose in the Appeals Court, and the Supreme Court did refuse to hear the case. So, come on, sun and moon!