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Microsoft going to court
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December 18, 1997: 4:21 p.m. ET
Company officials, Justice lawyers to set case deadlines in Friday meeting
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WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - A federal judge has ordered attorneys from the Justice Department and Microsoft Corp. into his courtroom Friday morning to set deadlines in their ongoing case.
The two parties will meet Friday at 11 a.m. ET to decide when Microsoft must file a formal reply to the Justice Department's latest complaints as well as deciding when Justice attorneys must respond.
The Justice Department filed a civil contempt charge Wednesday and urged U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who's hearing Justice's case against the software giant, to respond by Friday.
The government accuses Microsoft of violating a week-old injunction, issued by Jackson, requiring Microsoft to offer computer makers the option of having the latest version of Windows 95, known as OSR2, on their systems without the Internet Explorer 4.0 Web browser.
An official in Jackson's office told CNNfn Thursday that Jackson will decide Friday when Microsoft much file a formal response to the government. After it responds, the government will be allowed time to file its remarks.
"Normally the firm would be given about 11 days to file its response and the government another five days to reply, but this case is not normal," the official said.
Antitrust lawyers at the Justice Department attempted to keep pressure on Microsoft Thursday by again asking Jackson to fine Microsoft $1 million a day for violating the ruling. If Jackson agrees the ruling has been violated, the fines presumably would begin on the date the new ruling is issued.
The latest argument centers on the judge's ruling that Microsoft must not use the market dominance of its Windows 95 operating system to force computer makers to accept the operating system with a pre-installed version of Internet Explorer.
Microsoft insists it is complying with the judge's ruling to give PC makers a choice of the operating system without the browser, but the government charges Microsoft has only decoupled the browser from older versions of Windows 95, not giving the manufacturers a real choice.
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