Microsoft used 2002 to turn the tide in its nearly 5-year-old antitrust battle with the Justice Department and 18 states.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company started the year with its nemesis--the Justice Department--as an unlikely ally, the result of a settlement reached in November 2001. But Microsoft spent most of 2002 convincing U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that the deal was in the public interest and that stiffer remedies requested by nine nonsettling states were not necessary.