If Microsoft want to play the courts for a fool this time around, they are going to have a tougher time of it. The DoJ is gearing up for a fight to the death, it appears. I still think a split of the company is about 50-50, especially in light of the pressure Microsoft is putting on OEM's to force them to display MSFT icons on the OEM's screen. (oh that's right. The OEM's PC screen belongs to Microsoft.)

[link|http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168507.html|
DOJ Lawyer Ready To Take On Microsoft]

By Carrie Johnson and Jonathan Krim, Washington Post
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
31 Jul 2001, 6:39 AM CST

Philip Beck calls himself a trial lawyer.
The 50-year-old lives for the storytelling, the thrill of the courtroom, the chance to skewer witnesses with their own words, friends and co-workers say.

Whether he will get to use those skills on his latest assignment -- or even see the inside of a courthouse -- depends on how settlement talks fare with Microsoft Corp.
....
At stake is no less than the fate of the world's most famous monopolist, the Redmond, Wash., company whose Windows operating system runs more than 90 percent of the personal computers in the nation. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled the firm had abused its monopoly, threw out an order to break up the company, and sent two issues to a trial court to resolve. Microsoft and prosecutors from the Justice Department and 18 states met last week to discuss a possible settlement.

"The best way to settle a case is to show you're getting ready for trial and you're not afraid to go," said Donald Kempf Jr., chief legal officer at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and a former colleague of Beck's, on his friend's new assignment.