Another year, another ruling. This year's Microsoft antitrust judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, is to "issue opinions in the Microsoft cases" around 4.30pm EDT today, after the markets have closed in the US. PDFs of her opinions will be posted at that time, and they'll also be sent out to "interested parties."

So we hope - rather against hope - that the DC courts system has been doing some serious advance planning, in anticipation of heavy demand.

Judge CKK has to decide on both the DoJ-MS proposed settlement to the action, and the stiffer measures the dissenting states have asked for. The two are obviously related, but it'll still have been a tricky job to produce something dealing with both, while coming to a single, coherent conclusion. Will she hang them, won't she? Will it all end tonight, and if not, how many more years will it go on for?

We'll know soon enough, although sooner than this would have been better. ®