Courts could delay XP

US REPORTS SAY that government agencies, irked by the reversal of the proposed break up of Microsoft last week, may attempt to delay the firm's introduction of its XP "Whistler" operating system.

It won't really matter to the 64-bit version of Microsoft XP, however, which is expected to have its own inbuilt delay.

The move is likely to infuriate Microsoft, seeing as it has committed to spending hundreds and hundreds of greenbacks on marketing and launching XP.

The rest of the industry, lolling in the doldrums, is also expected to get cross, as many hope the intro of the new OS will speed up sales of memory, chips and what have you. According to today's WSJ, a number of government and US state agencies are contemplating using the stick of an XP delay to bring Bill Gates to the table in a penitent mood.

The local Wall Street newspaper reports Ballmer wrote a letter to MS employees at the end of last week reminding them there was nothing illegal about monopolies. We've got to agree with him. Last time we were in Albania we were very happy to read Enver Hoxha's complete works, and nothing would make us happier than to have a DIM (Dell-Intel-Microsoft) PC.

We don't think Bill G's self-image includes the "sackcloth and ashes" model, however. µ

* THE WSJ also reports a spat between Kodak and Microsoft over imaging software. From this it would appear that Kodak executives never watch The Simpsons.

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