Judge favors Microsoft search agreement
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. judge said Tuesday she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit against the software vendor, instead of responding toÂ a complaint from rival Google. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said she relies on the plaintiffs, including the U.S. Department of Justice and several states, to suggest solutions for complaints related to a 2002 antitrust settlement governing Microsoft. "The plaintiffs, as far as I'm concerned, stand in the shoes of the consumer," Kollar-Kotelly said during a status hearing on Microsoft's compliance with the settlement. "Google is not a party in this case." This month, Google filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft, saying it was difficult for computer users to change the default desktop search program in Windows Vista. Google protested the proposed desktop search agreement between Microsoft and the antitrust plaintiffs, saying it didn't go far enough. Google on Monday filed a motion asking Kollar-Kotelly to extend her oversight of changes to desktop search. (More to come.)
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Google's claims that Microsof's Vista desktop search violates its antitrust agreement could be difficult to prove.
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Several U.S. states are requesting a five-year&#160;extension&#160;of the&#160;antitrust judgment against Microsoft&#160;to ensure the company&#39;s continued compliance, according to a Tuesday court filing.Sections of the 2002 antitrust judgment are due to expire next month. A status hearing is scheduled for Nov. 6 with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.In the filing, the states argue that Microsoft could use the continued dominance of its Internet Explorer browser to choke off other emerging middleware technologies from Google Inc. and Adobe System Inc. that work in close conjunction with Web browsers.The filing mentions Google Gears and Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), technologies that allow for offline use of Internet-centric applications.&quot;Because Web-centric technologies are so dependent on Web browsers and servers for access to consumers, they are particularly susceptible to impediments that Microsoft could interpose were the final judgment were to expire now,&quot; the filing said.The states contend Microsoft could &quot;tilt the playing field&quot; to favor its new&#160;Silverlight multimedia technology, which competes with Adobe&#39;s Flash.The states also argued there have been continued problems with the program under which Microsoft licenses communication protocols to enable other vendors&#39; products to more smoothly work with ones from Microsoft.The technical documentation has been inadequate over the last five years, while Microsoft has continued to gain market share with its servers. Microsoft only recently delivered more rewritten documentation that is being evaluated, the filing said.The document was filed by California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.&#160;
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California asked the federal judge  overseeing Microsoft's  antitrust oversight agreement  to extend a section of it by three years to 2012.
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A federal judge ruled against Microsoft on Wednesday in a patent suit challenging &quot;AutoPlay&quot; technology included in recent versions of Microsoft Windows.
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SEATTLE - There was a time when Microsoft would vigorously resist any court-imposed restrictions on Windows. But the software giant has agreed to a court order to make it easier for consumers to choose Google&#39;s popular desktop search on Windows Vista computers.
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A San Francisco judge ordered Microsoft Corp.  to pay lawyers involved in its &#36;1.1 billion class action settlement &#36;100 million in legal fees, less than half of the original fees they requested, company officials said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will make changes to its desktop search program following aÂ complaint to the U.S. Department of JusticeÂ (DOJ) by Google. Google suggested in a white paper submitted to the DOJ earlier this year that Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to utilize non-Microsoft desktop-search software. Microsoft has reached an agreement with the DOJ to make it easier for end users to employ desktop search programs made by rival software developers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Microsoft will also provide more documentation and information to developers about how to make those search programs run smoothly, it said. The changes will be included in Microsoft's firstÂ Vista update, called Service Pack 1, slated to be released later this year, the report said. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Microsoft had agreed to make the "significant changes" in Vista operating system to stay in compliance with a U.S. court agreement in Microsoft's antitrust case. Brown's office intervened in the wake of reports that Microsoft's new operating system included a desktop search function called "Instant Search" that violated terms of its agreement to open its products to more competition. Google, which offers the most popular search engine on the Internet, said "Instant Search" is a "Microsoft middleware product," which is subject to the federal agreement in the antitrust case. The State of California contended that Vistaâs desktop search feature is a functionality that did not exist in prior Windows operating systems and is therefore covered under the agreement. Brown said Microsoft will provide users and computer manufacturers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, with greater flexibility to choose and access competing desktop search products. The agreement was included in a joint status report that was filed Wednesday with federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., who presided over the 2002 agreement in the case. "This agreement -- while not perfect -- is a positive step towards greater competition in the software industry," said Brown. "It will enhance the ability of consumers to select the desktop search tool of their choice." "Microsoft believes that Google's complaint is without merit," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in the status report. "Nevertheless, Microsoft worked with the Plaintiffs in a spirit of cooperation to resolve any issues the complaint may raise." Google said the search changes are welcome but more needs to be done. "Microsoft's current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer. "These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers." Microsoft was found to be operating an illegal monopoly in software by another U.S. District Judge in Washington. Microsoft entered into a settlement agreement with the federal government and attorneys general for several U.S. states to abide by certain rules to allow more competition. Microsoft had originally denied that its own desktop search interfered with non-Microsoft indexing software, noting that its search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty. The Redmond company also seemed to have the DOJ, its former antitrust foe, on its side: Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official,Â recommended that the DOJ and state attorneys general rejectÂ Google's complaint, according to a New York Times report earlier this month. As part of the desktop search agreement, software vendors will be able to register their products as alternatives for the Vista search. The default search selected by the computer user or OEM will launch whenever Vista launches a search result window, and the default search will have space in Vista's start menu. Microsoft will also tell software vendors and OEMs that the desktop search index in Vista is designed to run in the background and "cede precedence over computing resources to any other software product, including third-party search products," the DOJ said in its portion of the status report. "Microsoft will emphasize that there is no technical reason why OEMs and end-users cannot, if they choose to, install additional desktop search products on their systems." The plaintiffs in the case, including 17 states that sued Microsoft for antitrust, are "collectively satisfied that this agreement will resolve any issues" in the Google complaint, the DOJ said. Elsewhere in the status report, the DOJ said a technical committee overseeing Microsoft's compliance has hired two consulting firms to check Microsoft's procedures for identifying communications protocols that it is required to disclose to independent software vendors who want to make their products interoperable with Microsoft's. In March, Microsoft and the plaintiffs reached an agreement to address concerns over the belated discovery of protocols that plaintiffs believed needed to be disclosed. The technical committee will extend a royalty-free program for software vendors to receive the protocols, the DOJ said. The royalty-free program will continue 18 months after the date the committee decides the protocol documentation is substantially complete, and the technical committee can extend the program if it believe Microsoft isn't making progress on the documentation, the DOJ said. But Microsoft is on schedule with a plan to fix technical documentation used by other software vendors, the DOJ said. Errors in the technical documentation have prompted repeated complaints from the antitrust plaintiffs in recent months, but the DOJ said Microsoft has been able "to keep up with the flow of new technical documentation issues." This story was updated on June 20, 2007
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On Thursday Microsoft met the latest deadline to provide information on whether it is complying with a 2004 antitrust ruling.
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Microsoft Corp is ready to ask a judge  on Thursday to suspend penalties imposed on it for violating  antitrust law by using the monopoly of its Windows operating  system to hurt competitors.
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The judge examining whether or not to suspend sanctions in the European Union's antitrust ruling against MicrosoftÂ has called a meeting to determine how the case should proceed following the withdrawal of two of its major participants.
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WASHINGTON -- The judge overseeing Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust settlement said Tuesday she would not immediately address complaints Google Inc. has made about Microsoft's Windows Vista software.
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A federal judge heard arguments Monday in a trademark dispute that could threaten millions in advertising revenue for search engine Google Inc.
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A European Union judge is due to  decide this week if antitrust sanctions imposed on Microsoft  should be suspended -- a move the software giant hopes would  lead to new settlement talks.
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(InfoWorld) - The 2002 antitrust settlement between Microsoft and the U.S. government has yielded several benefits for consumers with competing Web browsers, multimedia applications, and Web-based services flourishing since the agreement, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. The DOJ, in an 11-page report, said the settlement seems to be working, despite questions from critics. "There have been a number of developments in the competitive landscape ... that suggest that the Final Judgments are accomplishing their stated goal of fostering competitive conditions among middleware products, unimpeded by anticompetitive exclusionary obstacles erected by Microsoft," said the report, from the DOJ and the group of states led by New York that sued the company. Among the DOJ's evidence that the settlement is working: Increased competition to Internet Explorer from other Web browsers, such as Firefox and Opera; the popularity of Apple's iTunes and QuickTime and Adobe's Flash for handling multimedia content; the increasing use of Web-based services for e-mail and other applications; and the decisions by hardware vendors like DellÂ to offer Linux preloaded on their computers. Apple introduced QuickTime in 1991, long before the antitrust lawsuit. Hardware vendors have been preloading Linux on computers dating back to the late '90s. "To be sure, none of the products mentioned ... have to date resulted in a dramatic reduction in Microsoft's PC operation system market share," the DOJ report said. "The Final Judgements were targeted to reinvigorating competitive conditions that Microsoft had suppressed, not to slicing off some part of Windows' market share." Microsoft, in a statement, said the judgment has fostered competition. The judgment "defined clear rules for how Microsoft competes without preordaining winners in the technology marketplace," Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, said in the statement. "The [judgment] shaped how we view our responsibilities and led us to adopt a set of voluntary principles that will continue to apply even after major parts of the U.S. antitrust ruling expire this November." The judgment and competitive principles Microsoft has adopted "provide the industry and consumers with the benefits of ongoing innovation by Microsoft, while creating and preserving robust opportunities for competition," Smith added. Microsoft, in its own antitrust status report issued Thursday, said competing middleware products continue to "proliferate." Seven top PC makers preinstall an average of 35 non-Microsoft software products before shipping them out, the Microsoft report said. Other groups have questioned the benefits of the settlement. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has at times questioned the benefits, even though she approved the judgment. In a hearing in February 2005, Kollar-Kotelly questioned "what, if any, effect" the judgment has had on the software market. Another group of states led by California that also sued Microsoft and has been critical of the judgment is scheduled to release its own report by Friday. A status report on Microsoft's antitrust compliance is scheduled before Kollar-Kotelly on Sept. 11.
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Google Inc.  asked a federal  judge on Monday to extend the consent decree that settled the  landmark antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.  in  order to address competition concerns involving the Windows  Vista operating system.
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Just because Microsoft has said it will comply immediately with a European Court judge&#39;s order to follow specified antitrust remedies doesn&#39;t mean life will be a bowl of cherries for Microsoft&#39;s partners, developers and even its competitors.