This is interesting because it suggests that DOJ is going to aggresivly pursue this case. I had been highly worried that Bush's DOJ would roll over for MS and give them some sort of toothless settlement. But this is a fairly aggresive move that shows a DOJ that wants to get something in place before MS's next OS release. This doesn't totally eliminate my worries, MS and the DOJ could still produce a useless settlement, but this does reduce that fear.

I wonder if this is because the states are still so strongly behind the case, and DOJ doesn't want to end up looking foolish. If they sign some meaningless settlement and then the states go ahead with the case and win, the DOJ would look pretty stupid.

Now my biggest fear is that MS could sucker the DOJ into another agreament that doesn't actually mean anything. MS has a long history of tricking people into deals that don't mean what the other party thinks they do, and working to render the deal meaningless at the same time they are signing it. Given the history of the case, I think the DOJ would be very wary of this, but it is still possible if they get pressure from above to settle the case.

Jay