Dozens of lawyers waging the Microsoft monopoly battle gathered at a private club in Chicago yesterday for a possible peace plan — but broke up with sealed lips after two hours.
The peace effort in the landmark case was ordered by federal trial Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who hopes an out-of-court settlement will nip in the bud what could become a huge legal morass when the case goes back to court Feb. 22.
Attorneys general of 19 states and lawyers for the Justice Department and Microsoft met with Jackson’s hand-picked mediator, U.S. Appellate Judge Richard Posner.
Posner used his private club, the exclusive Standard Club in Chicago, for his introductory sit-down with the lawyers.
After the session, Microsoft’s lead attorney David Boies said, “If this is going to work, it will work confidentially.”
Before the meeting, Microsoft ordered PRNewswire to kill a press release that was issued earlier in the day about Microsoft’s new business-to-business software protocol, known as SOAP.
Analysts say Microsoft’s business announcements are under close scrutiny during the case. Microsoft is attempting to gain an advantage over competitors, including Sun Microsystems and IBM, by establishing SOAP as an Internet standard and incorporating it into its server-based software.
“Microsoft will tell you it’s business-as-usual and that no one is really thinking about the lawsuit, but of course they are,” said John Dodge, editor of PC Week.
“If they had 36 lawyers looking at every press release they issued last summer, they’ve got double that now.”