US Government lawyers have urged the federal appeals court to reject Microsoft’s calls for a delay in its antitrust case. The US Justice Department argued on Friday that the granting of any delay in the case would produce an unnecessary disruption in the computer market and slow down efforts to assure fair competition in the software industry.

Microsoft has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an earlier Appeals Court ruling that the company had abused its dominant market position, whilst also requesting that the Appeals Court delay an order to send the case back to the lower District Court to determine what remedies should be imposed against Microsoft to prevent future violations.

The US government is keen that the case continues to move forward, in order to ensure that the upcoming launch of the Windows XP operating system is carried out under competitive conditions.

Digital photography is one of the anti-competitive issues raised by the Windows XP operating system. Kodak had complained that Microsoft had unfairly designed Windows XP to give preference to Microsoft affiliated on-line photo finishing services.

Microsoft has now reached a settlement with Kodak over the photography features contained within the Windows XP software. It is expected to announce that, as part of the deal, alterations have been made to the Windows XP photographic technology that will allow users to see multiple third party software packages on the menu bar, as well as the Microsoft software, whenever a digital camera is attached to a computer.

Microsoft has also agreed to clearly label built-in photographic software as its own and to strive to ensure that

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