A federal judge in the U.S. District in Washington issued a temporary order declaring that Microsoft may no longer bundle its Internet Explorer browsing software with the Windows operating system, until such time as the judge receives a report to the court from a Harvard Law School professor who will serve as a "special master" to study the complex legal and factual issues the case presents.

Though refusing to impose the million-dollar-a-day penalty against that the Justice Department had requested, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson wrote: "The probability that Microsoft will not only continue to reinforce its operating system monopoly by its licensing practices, but might also acquire yet another monopoly in the Internet browser market, is simply too great to tolerate indefinitely until the issue is finally resolved."

Industry analysts are predicting the basic dispute over placing limits on Microsoft's power will not be resolved for a number of years.

(c) New York Times