Microsoft gets extra time for anti-trust resolution

The judge presiding over the Microsoft anti-trust trials has offered the company and the Department of Justice an extra four days to submit a joint report outlining possible solutions to the case.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly agreed to extend the Friday deadline following a request filed late on Wednesday by both sides.

Jim Desler, a Microsoft spokesman, was unable to explain the precise reasons behind the request in an interview with Reuters. But he did confirm that the 21 September date for the hearing will be unchanged.

Microsoft recently escaped being broken up when a federal appeal court reversed a lower court ruling that the software giant should be split into smaller companies.

The lower court decision was in response to a federal ruling that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power to protect its dominance in the PC and personal software markets.