Headed For Battle

A historic antitrust case looms as last-minute talks between Microsoft and the feds fall apart

It was a little ironic, and probably a pretty bad omen, that just as the three-day "cooling-off period" between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department reached its climax this weekend, the temperature in Washington soared into the 90s and the negotiators were driven out of their conference room in the 60-year-old main Justice building for lack of weekend air conditioning. They beat the heat in the offices of Microsoft's lawyers, Sullivan and Cromwell, but even there cooler heads did not prevail. In a matter of hours, the negotiations collapsed. "The government's theories for the personal computer industry," said Microsoft senior vice...

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