Is Microsoft Corp. a do-gooder, or up to no good? That's the question a federal judge in Baltimore will consider on Tuesday at a hearing on the company's billion-dollar antitrust settlement of private, class-action lawsuits. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz will have to decide whether the settlement proposed by the company is a creative solution that will put computers in the hands of poor school children or a legal ruse that will further the company's dominant position in the computer business. Microsoft says the private settlement is a civic-minded way to resolve more than 100 lawsuits filed around the country on behalf of customers allegedly overcharged by the company.

Under the settlement, Microsoft would make amends by spending more than $1 billion to put software and computers into some of the poorest U.S. schools. It would assist more than 12,500 schools serving nearly 7 million children under the settlement of the private suits. "It is a settlement that avoids long and costly litigation for the company and at the same time ... really makes a difference in the lives of millions of school children in some of the most economically disadvantaged schools in the country," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told reporters last week.