The way I read it is that Google has cried afoul, and even though the Justice department sided with and told MS to reject it, MS chose instead to work with Google and correct the problem.
Caveat: I make well over an obscene amount yearly because of MS, so my statements may be biased.
It would appear that instead of fighting it this time and having changes shoved down their collective throats, the boys in Redmond are instead choosing to work WITH a competitor and help them work better in the Vista environment. This is good news for consumers, with the second caveat being that this is the first volley. MS will help and comply to a point, but at some point they will say "oh no, wait a tick, that could give access to proprietary blah blah blah"
Just wait and see what they do is my advice, and I have been using Vista for pretty much since it was released a couple years ago to technet and beta. MS has really bent over backwards this time to listen to the testers and complaints, and even though it hasn't garnered wide acceptance yet, Vista will catch on as people buy new PC's. And Vista is very media friendly, so only more good news for us.
