[Am-info] Microsoft alters settlement to address Apple concerns

[Mitch Stone]

http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0306/06/technology-184923.htm

Microsoft alters settlement to address Apple concerns

Microsoft Corp. , which agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle antitrust 
claims in California, dropped a provision in the agreement that would 
give its software away for free to schools after rival Apple Computer 
Inc. complained.

Schools that are awarded vouchers under the settlement can now receive 
any manufacturers' technology product, according to court documents 
filed in San Francisco. Previously, Microsoft planned to give schools 
either free Microsoft software or cash to buy any computer products.

The change could avert a challenge to the settlement by Apple, which 
competes with Microsoft in the education market and helped derail a 
proposed antitrust settlement in 2001 over the issue of software to 
schools. School sales accounted for more than one-fifth of Apple's 
revenue last year.

"It takes the lock off and allows schools to decide who they will buy 
from," said Ernest Gellhorn, who teaches antitrust law at George Mason 
University law school.

[...]