While reorganizing the editorials on my Web site, I glanced at [link|http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit005.html|
Tried, Guilty Sentenced]. On what the Supreme Court might do if Justice asked it to intervene, I marked "Send the case down to the appeals court" as "worst case".

In fact, that's what they did and it could hardly have been better. A libertarian leaning, pro-business court known to have favored Microsoft in the past tried it with all 7 judges and unanimously upheld 8 counts of conviction for monopoly abuse, set aside the "tying" issue but told the DoJ how to win it if they chose to pursue it, and set-aside a somewhat tainted verdict while indicating even breakup was still on the table during retrial.

The big unknown now is the new judge. Not enough anti-trust track record to predict. We'll have to wait and see, but I'm betting Microsoft will manage to offend her right off at the start - imply she's unqualified, ignore her orders, submit in the wrong format, or some such.