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 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.
 
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