Microsoft's Files Short, but Not Sweet, Final Brief
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: The long-awaited ruling in the Microsoft antitrust case could come as early as today. Microsoft filed its final papers on Tuesday, a day ahead of schedule, and now Judge Jackson is free to issue a decision that could split the company in two. Microsoft calls the break-up plan extreme and unenforceable and, as Steve Young reports, the software giant's last response was short but not sweet.</s>STEVE YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In its final brief in the case filed earlier than expected, Microsoft got in one last scalding zinger at the government. The short brief says, "Microsoft's employees ... many of whom are engineers ... would be unable to certify that they understand the revised proposed final judgment because it is, in many respects, so vague and ambiguous as to be unintelligible."</s>HARVEY SAFERSTEIN, ANTITRUST LAWYER: It sounds like the timing, as well as the tone, of the brief is such that Microsoft is saying: Let's get on with it, we're tired of this, we're getting beat up, let's go to the court of appeals.</s>YOUNG: The brief says the government has agreed only to cosmetic changes. It claims the government has confirmed it seeks to regulate the matter in which Microsoft designs its operating systems. It says, in fact, that the revised proposed final judgment is worse than Microsoft originally thought by confirming that certain provisions are more extreme than they might appear at first blush. In its wind up, the remarkable Microsoft brief says, quote: "Faced with the prospect of certifying that they understand something that they do not, many Microsoft employees might choose to resign instead." It's now possible Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson could enter the breakup decree as soon as Wednesday.</s>SAFERSTEIN: All Judge Jackson has to do is sign it and get it onto the, in effect, to the Court of Appeals and to the question of whether there is going to be a stay of any of this judgment pending appeal.</s>YOUNG: The Justice Department said Microsoft ignored the extent of its legal violations and grossly exaggerated the government's breakup proposal. Microsoft's final brief came several hours after its chairman testified on Capitol Hill before the Joint Economic Committee, skirting the whole subject. So did they, in a new form of, don't tell, don't ask. (on camera): Microsoft's chairman will try bending more influential ears while he is in Washington. He'll join other software CEOs in meetings Wednesday with the Commerce and Treasury secretary's and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission behind closed doors. Steve Young, CNN Financial News, Washington.