Microsoft, States File Closing Briefs

Both documents, well over 500 pages each, summarize the points both sides made in two months of testimony and arguments earlier this year. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for June 19, and a decision is expected in late summer.

"Today's court filing details the strong record we built during trial and provides evidence that supports our main arguments: that the states' remedy is unworkable, would cause great harm to the PC ecosystem, would hurt consumers and is hopelessly vague and ambiguous," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said in a statement.

As a matter of law, Microsoft argues that the states do not have the legal standing to demand any remedies at all. But "in the interests of maintaining uniformity," the company's lawyers wrote, a federal settlement reached in November should be entered as an alternative judgment.

The states, led by Iowa and California, say the federal deal agreed to by Microsoft is too weak and would do little to restrain Microsoft from continuing the same sort of ruthless behavior found illegal by the courts.

"Our objective is to restore meaningful competition for consumers in America's computer software marketplace," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who will decide this case as well as the federal settlement, has not made a ruling on the states' right to sue. She also has not indicated whether she will approve the federal deal.

The states want Microsoft to make a number of changes that the company says would hurt consumers and cripple the company. Microsoft would have to create a modular version of the Windows operating system, in which particular components could be removed and replaced by computer manufacturers. The states also want Microsoft to put its Internet Explorer Web browser into the public domain and translate its Office productivity software to other operating systems.

Microsoft was found by a federal appeals court to have used illegal means to stamp out nascent competition in order to protect its Windows monopoly.

The company argued that the states' proposals go far beyond Microsoft's original illegal acts.

"These provisions address matters unrelated to the liability determinations upheld by the court of appeals _ and hence are more likely to harm than to promote competition," company lawyers wrote.

Microsoft used illegal business deals and other means to protect its Windows operating system from competition by Netscape's Navigator Web browser and Sun Microsystems's Java programming language.

The states said Microsoft still uses similar means. More recent rivals, like makers of business-level server computers, handheld computers and interactive television software, have the potential to compete with the software giant.

"There would surely be no point in limiting the remedies merely to the two technologies that were subject to the unlawful behavior, when the same conduct can be and has been directed at others," lawyers for the states wrote.

States' lawyers say the legal system allows the states to take stronger measures in order to level the playing field. Then, they say, consumers and software designers would have the means to choose which operating system they want to use.

The original judge in the antitrust case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ordered Microsoft broken into two companies. An appeals court upheld many of the violations but reversed the breakup order and appointed Kollar-Kotelly to determine a new punishment.

States that rejected the government's settlement with Microsoft last fall and are pressing for tougher penalties are Iowa, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Kansas, Florida, Minnesota and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

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