States keep antitrust pressure on Microsoft
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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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(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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(InfoWorld) - Google may be seeking a reopening of state and federal government antitrust action against Microsoft, but a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official has recommended against it, newspaper reports indicated Sunday. Google alleged that Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to employ non-Microsoft desktop-search software, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing lawyers familiar with the case. Microsoft's own desktop indexing system is almost impossible to turn off, Google claimed in a white paper sent to both the DOJ and states' attorneys general, thereby affecting a computer's performance when running non-Microsoft search index, the report said. Microsoft denied the accusations, saying that its own search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty, and that its program did not interfere with the operation of other search indexing software and therefore did not influence performance, according to the report. Despite Google's efforts to draw its rival into a protracted legal fight, the company's antitrust cries are falling on deaf ears, especially at the DOJ, which fought Microsoft over monopoly accusations in the late 1990s until a settlement in 2002, according to The New York Times, which also cited lawyers close to the case. Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official, recommended in May that the DOJ and state attorneys general reject Google's complaint, the report said. Formerly employed by a law firm that represented Microsoft during the DOJ antitrust suit, Barnett did not work on the case before joining the DOJ, and recused himself from involvement in the DOJ's ongoing monitoring of Microsoft that is part of the 2002 settlement, the report said. However, some state prosecutors may take up the case with or without the DOJ, which is slated to be heard in Federal District Court in Washington later this month, it said.
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The European Union and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) are locked in talks as a deadline nears this week for the software giant to comply with an EU anti-trust ruling, officials said Monday.
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Four more states have joined California and others in asking a federal judge to hold Microsoft to its antitrust settlement for another five years. But the Justice Department is opposed to the move.
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Microsoft Corp.  is on track to  resolve this month its fight with European Union regulators  over its compliance with a 2004 antitrust ruling, the software  company&#039;s general counsel said on Wednesday.
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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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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.
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Software giant Microsoft Corp. hopes an impending court ruling on its five-year antitrust battle with the European Union will bring both sides back to the negotiating table, but EU regulators still balk at resuming direct negotiations, officials said Thursday.
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Several California cities and counties have sued Microsoft, accusing the software giant of illegally charging inflated prices for its products because of monopoly control of the personal computer operating systems market.
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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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Four states that previously praised the effectiveness of Microsoft's antitrust settlement reversed their positions and asked for an extension of government oversight of the software giant.
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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.
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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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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general are concerned that Microsoft is revising deadlines that it agreed to as part of its antitrust settlement. At issue are changes that Microsoft says it needs to make in the schedule for releasing documentation related to Vista, according to a court document filed Tuesday. "Plaintiffs are concerned that Microsoft has not been able to meet its original schedule and are particularly troubled that at this late hour in the program, Microsoft is still discovering protocols that should have been included in the original documentation," the DOJ and the states said in a joint status report. "Plaintiffs are discussing this matter with Microsoft and will report to the court further at the status conference." The plaintiffs and Microsoft attorneys are due to meet with U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly next Tuesday for the status conference. Such conferences are held periodically so that the judge can assess whether Microsoft is complying with requirements of the 2003 antitrust order against the company. As part of the judgment, Microsoft is required to provide technical documentation for its software to help ISVs make their products interoperable with Microsoft's. On Feb. 15, Microsoft said that it needed to modify the schedule for documentation because protocols that must be documented were added to the Vista Server after the initial schedule for rewriting documentation was set or because those protocols were "inadvertently overlooked." For its part, Microsoft said in the status report filed Tuesday and made public Wednesday that it found it could "enhance" rewritten documentation of some existing protocols "by providing more detailed and comprehensive descriptions. This increased significantly the number of pages that Microsoft expected to produce in connection with the existing documentation." The number of pages of documentation Microsoft expects will be part of the rewrite project is "likely thousands of pages larger" than the company expected late last year. Under the revised schedule, Microsoft is expected to deliver documents related to Vista by April 3. It has already met three "milestones" that are part of the schedule and besides the Vista documentation has two other sets due May 11 and July 20 under the revised schedule. Microsoft said that the schedule, even since it was revised, is still aggressive. The antitrust case was tried in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which continues to oversee Microsoft compliance with requirements laid out in the judgment against the company.
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Despite numerous out-of-court settlements with various state governments around the country, it appears Microsoft&#39;s legal woes aren&#39;t over yet.
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By Benjamin J. Romano, The Seattle Times  Jun. 18--Just as a major episode in Microsoft's antitrust saga was  winding down, a complaint from its biggest rival threatens to push the  company's competitive practices back into the spotlight.