“Seven states are pushing back against the Department of
Justice’s assessment that the landmark antitrust settlement between
the United States and Microsoft has removed the anticompetitive
obstacles created by the software maker and resulted in more
competition in the middleware market.“In fact, according to attorneys for California, Connecticut,
Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the
District of Columbia, known as the ‘California Group’ of
plaintiffs, ‘Microsoft’s market power remains undiminished and…
key provisions of the final judgment–those relating to
middleware–have had little or no competitively significant
impact…'”