Like Sands In The (Microsoft) Hourglass ...Like Sands In The (Microsoft) Hourglass ...

The Microsoft antitrust soap opera isn't over yet. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says she'll hold hearings about proposed remedies against the software maker next year. The news came Tuesday after nine U.S. states said they oppose a proposed settlement.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia negotiated with Microsoft and the Department of Justice through the early morning hours Tuesday to toughen proposed restrictions on Microsoft's behavior. The restrictions--which govern how Microsoft must ink contracts and disclose technical information about its products--are part of a proposed settlement to the long-running antitrust case reached by Microsoft and the Department of Justice Nov. 1.

Nine states have signed a modified version of the agreement after overnight bargaining Tuesday. The states are reportedly New York, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Wisconsin. Attorneys general for those states won changes to the proposed settlement, which would broaden the amount of information Microsoft must disclose about its server products.

Still opposing the agreement are California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Utah, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia. The dissenting states say the settlement doesn't ensure competition in an industry in which Microsoft was found by courts to hold a monopoly in the PC operating-system market. If the sides settle the case out of court, Microsoft isn't bound by that legal finding, but rather by the restrictions of the new consent decree.

"I don't rule out the possibility of settling with Microsoft, but I want to be sure the settlement actually accomplishes what we hope it accomplishes," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly says she's prepared to hold separate, concurrent hearings beginning next March about whether the proposed settlement is in the public interest, and on the opposing states' request for stricter remedies. She rejected Microsoft's request to suspend remedy hearings until she decides on a settlement.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Microsoft said the support of some states so far "is a very significant positive step toward resolving these issues once and for all."

A statement from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Charles James called the Nov. 1 deal "very good for the technology economy. Most fundamentally, what the settlement does is it enables firms to develop new middleware products and allows [the products] to be put on to operating systems."

Shares of Microsoft rose $5.51 Tuesday to close at $64.78.