More U.S. states urge extension of Microsoft antitrust settlement
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Four states that recently said the U.S. federal judgment in the Microsoft antitrust case has done its job have made an about face, now joining&#160;other states asking for an extension of the judgment.New York, Maryland, Louisiana, and Florida asked the court to extend the term of the judgment for another five years, according to a filing they made with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday. The states join California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia in asking for the extension.As recently as August the states led by New York said the judgment was achieving its goal of fostering competition.Now they&#39;ve changed their tune. &quot;An extension is appropriate to assure that marketplace participants have sufficient opportunity to establish positions to compete against Microsoft, an entrenched monopolist,&quot; they wrote in the filing.Microsoft&#39;s &quot;well-known difficulties&quot; complying with parts of the judgment have hurt the chances for more competition in the market, they wrote. The filing also stated that the pace of technological development of the overall operating system market hasn&#39;t moved as fast as expected when the judgment was written, so that removing oversight of the judgment now would impair the chances of potential competitors.The states suggest that extending the judgment shouldn&#39;t unduly harm Microsoft as the company said in&#160;a case brought by the European Commission&#160;that the settlement in the U.S. hadn&#39;t negatively impacted its incentive to innovate.In response to the filing by the New York group of states, Microsoft reiterated its comments following the filing earlier this week by the California group. &quot;We believe the consent decree has served its purpose,&quot; Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman, said in a statement. &quot;Microsoft has worked hard to implement the decree&#39;s requirements and has changed its practices as a result.&quot;
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Consumers and businesses in California  will have until Jan. 8 to claim their part of a $1.1 billion  class action settlement with Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O after the  California Superior Court awarded an extension, plaintiff's  attorneys said on Thursday.
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Compliance hold up The US Department of Justice told a federal judge it is unhappy with Microsoft's plans to extend a deadline for supplying technical information to licensees documenting how Windows communicates with operating systems and middleware made by other companies.â¦
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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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Microsoft Corp. said in court Thursday that it had been prepared during settlement talks to share more software code with its rivals than the European Union demanded.
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Microsoft will be under the eye of the federal government for at least two more years regarding its famous antitrust case settlement.
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(InfoWorld) - Plaintiffs in the U.S. antitrust case against Microsoft disagreed sharply on whether the company should be released from the rules put in place by a 2002 consent decree, legal filings revealed Thursday. Key parts of the consent decree -- which grew out of the 2002 antitrust settlement struck with Microsoft by the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 states -- are scheduled to expire Nov. 12. Those rules, which have been overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, spell out prohibitions against Microsoft -- including ones that bar it from retaliating against manufacturers -- as well as requirements, such as one that demands the company disclose APIs to competitors so they can make their software run more smoothly with Windows. Reports filed to Kollar-Kotelly Thursday show that regulators are split in their opinions of the decree's effectiveness and whether it should be extended past Nov. 12. On one side, the U.S. Department of Justice and five states -- New York, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Wisconsin -- told Kollar-Kotelly that the decree had done its job. "The United States and the New York group respectively submit that the final judgments have achieved [their] goals," the group's report read. Thomas Barnett, the assistant attorney general who heads the Justice Department's antitrust division, was more specific. "The final judgments have been successful in preventing Microsoft from continuing the type of exclusionary behavior that led to the original lawsuit," he said in a statement. Six states and the District of Columbia, all part of the group that rejected the settlement when it was first proposed by the Department of Justice in 2001, sharply dissented. Lead by California, the group -- which also includes D.C., Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Massachusetts -- said Microsoft's grip on the industry was as strong as ever. "There can be little doubt that Microsoft's market power remains undiminished and that key provisions of the final judgment have had little or no competitively significant impact. "Microsoft's commingling violation has not been effectively addressed, Microsoft remains in possession of the fruits of its violation, and the competitive conditions antedating Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct have not been restored," the California group said in its filing. "The final judgment clearly has had little or no discernible impact in the marketplace as measured by the most commonly used metric, market shares," the group said. Its report then went on to cite sources, including research firm IDC, to show that in some cases -- server operating system share, for example -- Microsoft's slice has grown dramatically. Not surprisingly, Microsoft reached a different conclusion in its report filed Thursday. "The final judgments created an environment in which market forces can determine the relative success and thus the market shares of participants," the company said. "Measured by that standard, the final judgments have been a success." Earlier this year, Kollar-Kotelly told the plaintiffs that she didn't want last-minute objections to the Nov. 12 expiration, prompting them to file now. A status hearing before Kollar-Kotelly on Sept. 11 -- the next-to-last such hearing scheduled before the decree is set to lapse -- also played a part in the timing. Hints that the California contingent would argue that Microsoft's probation should be extended came this morning in the Los Angeles Times, which quoted California Attorney General Jerry Brown as saying that the 2002 settlement "has not been all that effective." Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, disagreed. "As it was specifically intended, the consent decree defined clear rules for how Microsoft competes without preordaining winners in the technology marketplace," Smith said in a statement. "The consent decree 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." In July 2006, Microsoft published a three-principle, 12-tenet manifesto dubbed "Windows Principles: Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition" that it promised to abide by. The first principle on the list: "Choice for Computer Manufacturers and Customers." California and its fellow states shot back. "These 'Windows Principles' are, of course, completely voluntary, and it is unclear whether they are simply a public relations gesture or something more substantive," the group's report stated. Kollar-Kotelly will hear arguments from the parties at the Sept. 11 meeting; at some point after that, but presumably before Nov. 12, she is expected to render her decision. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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The European Commission warned Microsoft  on Thursday it faced further fines in its long-running antitrust battle with Brussels, this time for seeking unreasonable prices from software makers for vital data.
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A federal judge ruled on Tuesday to extend the U.S. government's antitrust oversight of Microsoft Corp  for two more years, but stopped short of granting a five-year extension sought by states accusing the company of continuing monopolistic behavior.
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Microsoft&#39;s compliance with a&#160;U.S. antitrust settlement&#160;will remain under court supervision for another two years, in part because the company delayed producing documentation required by the court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of state plaintiffs in the U.S. Microsoft antitrust case will ask for a five-year extension of a large portion of the 2002 judgment against the company, the group's lawyer said Tuesday. California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia -- known as the "California group" -- want an extension of most of the middleware portions of the judgment, said Stephen Houck, a lawyer for the group. Microsoft still retains a huge lead in the operating system and Web browser markets, he said. "Microsoft continues to have a stranglehold over the two products ... that nearly all consumers use," Houck said during an antitrust compliance hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "Very little has happened in five years ... in those markets." The California group of states -- the larger of two groups of states that sued Microsoft for antitrust violations -- will ask for an extension of all the middleware portions of the antitrust judgement, except for a section that governs the royalties Microsoft can charge PC manufacturers for the Windows operating system. Most of the antitrust judgment was scheduled to expire in November. Microsoft lawyer Rick Rule said the company would need time to respond to Houck's proposal. Microsoft first heard of the plan to ask for an extension on Friday, he said, and the California group plans to file a formal extension request with the court in mid-October. Rule seemed to suggest Microsoft would fight the five-year extension. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to impose a 10-year judgment in 2002, he said. "We think the picture of the computer industry is much rosier," Rule added. "We think it's clear that the decree has done its job." Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the company will respond in more detail after it has seen the extension request. "We're a bit surprised that a few states are now requestingÂ an extension of the consent decree because they indicated just last month that they're not too fond of it," Evans said. In August 2006, Microsoft already agreed to an extension of the section of the judgment requiring it to make its communications protocols available to other software vendors. Microsoft's efforts to fix technical documentation for the protocols have run into several delays. Houck on Tuesday asked Kollar-Kotelly to extend the communications protocol section of the judgment until 2012. The California group does not "have any confidence" Microsoft will continue to improve the communications protocol program without oversight, Houck said. An independent auditor's report just issued questions whether Microsoft has released all the protocols mandated in the judgment, he added. The California group's extension proposal comes afterÂ the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York group of states filed briefs last month saying the antitrust judgment has done its job. "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 New York group, which includes five states. But Houck disputed that assessment on Tuesday. At the time of the judgment, a handful of PC vendors were preinstalling a competing Web browser on PCs, he said. Today, no major ones are, he said. In addition, the communications protocol program was supposed to be finished early in the judgment's life, and its delays have kept software vendors from fully using the program, Houck said. "The whole thing ... doesn't have an opportunity to work as the court intended," he said. "It's very clear that the product markets at issue in this case have not moved rapidly at all." Kollar-Kotelly said she would delay final reports on the judgment while she considers the California group's request. Microsoft and the plaintiffs were scheduled to meet with her Nov. 6 to discuss the final reports, but she will now consider the extension request on that date. Before Houck made his request, the judge said she was opposed to extending the judgment without a good reason. It was hard to predict the impact the judgment would have, she added. "The final chapter of the final judgment has not been written," Kollar-Kotelly said. The California group wants Kollar-Kotelly to extend all of section 3 of the judgment except for section 3B, dealing with manufacturer royalties. The extended provision would include: *Â A prohibition against Microsoft retaliating against PC vendors for including competing software on PCs; *Â A prohibition against Microsoft restricting PC vendors from putting competing middleware in the start menu or making them defaults; *Â A requirement that Microsoft give APIs for its middleware to PC vendors and independent software vendors.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Microsoft filed formal paperwork Wednesday to extend part of an antitrust judgment against the company for at least two years. The extension of U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's November 2002 antitrust settlement would give Microsoft more time to complete work on technical documentation for licensees of its communications protocols. The DOJ and Microsoft filed a joint request Wednesday for Kollar-Kotelly to approve the extension, which the DOJ proposed in May. The antitrust order had been scheduled to expire in November 2007. If the judge approves the two-year extension, the DOJ and 17 state plaintiffs in the antitrust case can ask for an additional three-year extension if they still have complaints about Microsoft documentation. Microsoft has said it will not oppose a second extension. Under the settlement, Microsoft is required to license the communication protocols to other IT vendors interested in developing server software that works with Microsoft's Windows operating system. But as of May, hundreds of bugs in the technical documentation remained. A technical committee working with the antitrust plaintiffs identified 575 bugs in the technical documentation as of Feb. 8. By March 16, Microsoft had whittled the bugs identified by the technical committee down to 307, but the number of high-priority bugs grew from 68 to 71 in that period. By May 8, the number of high-priority bugs with a 60-day deadline grew to 79, and the total number of bugs identified by the technical committee was 414.
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Microsoft Corp.  is expanding its indemnification program for Windows and other software products in order to shield users from legal claims and patent disputes, the world's largest software maker said on Tuesday.
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A federal judge ruled on Tuesday to  extend the U.S. government's antitrust oversight of Microsoft  Corp  for two more years, but stopped short of granting  a five-year extension sought by states accusing the company of  continuing monopolistic behavior.
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The U.S. Department of Justice said it will not seek to extend the restrictions placed on Microsoft&#39;s business practices following its antitrust settlement with the U.S. government in 2002.
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The European Commission said that Microsoft has met a key deadline in its antitrust standoff with the US software giant, staving off the threat of further fines.
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Judge asked to approve extra two years--with the option of three more--for portions of landmark settlement critics say have been implemented too slowly.