Microsoft, government do a pre-talks dance.

Just five hours after a federal judge ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly, the nation_s top antitrust enforcer and a top Microsoft official were face to face, and they were talking settlement - but they didn_t seem to be settling anything. This was no negotiation. It was a television program, ABC_s "Nightline." Throughout the weekend, top officials in the historic legal battle appeared side by side and back to back discussing Friday_s landmark ruling, but they couldn_t have been further apart. Talk of settlement seemed natural after U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared Microsoft to be a monopolist that had used its prodigious power and wealth to crush competition, squelch innovation and squeeze consumers to meet its corporate goals or extract excessive profits. But if a settlement is possible, it wasn_t in view yesterday. Both sides put on their poker faces for the public. The government said any settlement would have to address the far-reaching findings laid out by Jackson, and Microsoft, not surprisingly, rejected the judge_s scathing ruling and suggested the company was willing to take its chances with higher courts. "This is a competitive business with a lot of innovation," Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Bob Herbold told CNN_s "Late Edition." "We don_t think the findings adequately reflect that competitiveness. What we_re seeing here is one step in the process that we need to let play out."The one-step-in-the-process message conveyed a hard line by Microsoft that hinted the company was looking toward appeals courts rather than settlement. Herbold seemed unwilling to acknowledge that the judge_s ruling has transformed the negotiation landscape as well. "There are serious issues here about law enforcement and the antitrust laws that, of course, if Microsoft were prepared to engage on those issues we would be prepared as well," Joel Klein, the Department of Justice_s antitrust chief, said on Fox News yesterday. The pre-negotiation dance began on "Nightline" and continued through a litany of yesterday_s public-affairs TV shows. While ostensibly designed to discuss the ruling, when the talk turned to settlement, both sides seemed to stake out their current positions.