Microsoft' petition to have the state's case against it dismissed was, not surprisingly, denied yesterday. In the midst of the ruling, however, was an interesting clue about what may be to come fro the 3rd judge to look into this question:
Microsoft has argued that the states' remedies would mostly benefit a few competitors.
Kollar-Kotelly said that "claim is flatly contradicted" by an earlier district-court finding that "significant adverse effect on competition within the state is manifestly proven by the facts presented here" and that "millions of citizens of, and hundreds, if not thousands, of enterprises in each of the United States and District of Columbia utilize PCs running on Microsoft software."
Kollar-Kotelly said that finding was upheld by the Court of Appeals, so Microsoft cannot argue "this is a case where the 'primary thrust of an alleged wrong is injury to a narrowly limited class of individuals and the harm to the economy as a whole is insignificant by comparison.' "
Now that doesn't sound good. -- She accepts negative effect on competition and seems to extend that to enterprises and individuals using Microsoft software. Boy, the class action attorney's must be throwing their puffy white body's into somersaults.
But what I don't see is harm. Is adverse effect on competition harm?
I'm poking around the web and surprised to find that only the Seattle Times -- not usually your source of up to the minute aggro reporting -- has picked up this angle. Dan Gillmor, the spleenetic columnist and nouvo blogger from the SJ Merc gets it wrong wrong wrong and, oddly, bemoans how MS seems to be skating away from this. Anything but, I'd say.
Oh, that's right, he's a technology journalist. He can probably still phonically apprehending page 2 of the ruling.
4:17:16 PM 
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