Antitrust Complaints Prompt Changes to Vista
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Google claimed that Vista thwarted computer users who wanted to use search software other than Microsoftâs.
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Search giant wants federal and state regulators to press Microsoft to make more changes to Windows Vista's desktop search and indexing tool.
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Microsoft's attempt to win over new users with a cut-down edition of Windows comes in for strong criticism.
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(InfoWorld) - When MicrosoftÂ releases Windows VistaÂ to business customers in Europe on Thursday, it will be offering an extra version of the OS to comply with the European Commission's antitrust ruling against the company. In itsÂ 2004 decision, the Commission ordered Microsoft to release additional versions of Windows that comeÂ without its Windows Media Player software. The idea was to prevent Microsoft's dominance in the desktop OS market from giving it an unfair advantage over rivals like RealNetworksÂ and Apple Computer. That resulted in versions of Windows XP called "Edition N," which sold for the same price as the standard Windows XP. With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is having to do the same again. The company was still working with the Commission to determine exactly how many N versions are required, but it expects to offer them for both home and business users, said Thor Windham-Wright, a spokesman with Microsoft's public relations agency. "To comply with the ruling, Microsoft will have to produce an Edition N for all future editions of Windows," confirmed Tom Brookes, Microsoft's spokesman in Brussels. Microsoft released Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise to its volume licensing customers on Thursday, along with Exchange Server 2007, its e-mail server product, and the Office 2007 productivity suite. The consumer editions of Windows Vista are due for release on Jan. 30. The main advances in Vista are better security, its revamped Aero user interface and, for businesses, features to help to reduce PC management costs, Microsoft has said. Critics have noted that there has been little support from PC makers for the "N" versions of Windows, undermining the effectiveness of the Commission's ruling. Most PC makers chose not to offer Windows XP PCs with Edition N, citing little interest from customers and the expense of supporting extra versions of the OS. The antitrust ruling also ordered Microsoft to release protocols used by its work group servers to allow competing software to operate more smoothly with Windows. It isn't launching the server version of Vista,Â code-named Longhorn, until late 2007, so the company doesn't have to submit the protocol information for it yet. âDocumentation for Vista work group server products would be needed when they do launch a Vista server system, but we donât require documentation from the Vista PC OS,â Todd said. If rival software manufacturers are unhappy about Vistaâs impact on competition and complain to the European competition regulator, Todd said the Commission will consider their complaints âon their merits.â It's hard to predict how the coming months will proceed with Microsoft's competitors and the Commission, said Michael Silver, research vice president with Gartner Inc. "I think as long as Microsoft is around and they're dominant they're going to attract companies that say they are being treated unfairly," he said. Enterprises in Europe will probably take longer to adopt Vista than those in the U.S., since European companies typically use their hardware and software longer, Silver said. Gartner predicts most organizations will test Vista for 12 to 18 months before widely deploying the OS. "Certainly, this is just a beginning," Silver said. But Microsoft was quick to promote early adopters. The Arsenal soccer club, which plays at Emirates Stadium where Microsoft is holding its U.K. launch event Thursday afternoon, is among those already using the new software, the company said. (Paul Meller in Brussels contributed to this report.) Â
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The European Commission has opened two new antitrust investigations of Microsoft&#39;s activities.The first case is in response to a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based trade group of which Opera Software is a member, and concerns the interoperability of Windows with other software, the Commission said Monday.The second investigation is looking into Microsoft&#39;s tactic of bundling software products with its Windows operating system. This follows a complaint to the Commission by Opera, a Norwegian browser developer.Both issues featured in the Commission&#39;s landmark March 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft, which the company unsuccessfully challenged in court.(More to come.)
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Google Inc. is arguing that Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Vista violates a 2002 antitrust settlement because its indexing software is hard to turn off. But an expert says indexing can be disabled easily.
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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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Even with the operating system released to the public, Microsoft cannot seem to catch a break with Windows Vista. The latest complaints come from game developers, who say the OS' parental controls are so strict they're disrupting gameplay.
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U.S. antitrust authorities confirmed on Tuesday they reached an accord with Microsoft Corp. requiring the company to modify its Vista operating system in response to complaints its desktop search function puts Google Inc.  and other potential competitors at a disadvantage.
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By MAY WONG  SAN JOSE, Calif. - For nearly a year, television and Internet audiences have been seeing a familiar string of ads from Apple attacking rival Windows-based computers. With this week's release of Windows Vista, the newest jabs aren't any friendlier.
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SEATTLE _ Google, unsatisfied with changes Microsoft is making to Windows Vista's desktop search feature in response to an antitrust complaint, is pushing for further changes and more judicial oversight of Microsoft's practices.
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Microsoft Corp.  has agreed to  modify its Windows Vista operating system in response to a  complaint that its computer search function put Google Inc.   and other potential rivals at a disadvantage, the  Justice Department and Microsoft said on Tuesday.
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A court's order is the first time since antitrust challenges to Microsoft began that the company will be forced to alter its strategy of bundling software.
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Microsoft Corp.  has agreed to  modify its new Vista operating system in response to complaints  that its desktop search function puts Google Inc.  and  other potential competitors at a disadvantage, a source  familiar with the case told Reuters on Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Any attempt to incorporate its own security software in Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp.'s next generation operating system, could spark a new antitrust spat with Europe's top regulator, the European Commission, spokesman Jonathan Todd warned Tuesday.Todd told Microsoft not to shut out security software rivals. Diversity and innovation could be at risk if Microsoft bundles its own security software with its dominant OS, he said. Microsoft warned last week that Vista, due to launch early next year, may be delayed in Europe because of the regulator's concerns. Earlier Tuesday the company said it hoped the Commission would not demand the removal of important security features from Windows Vista in Europe. "One of our principal concerns is that European consumers have access to the same new security features in Windows Vista as everyone else," said Erich Andersen, vice president and associate general counsel for Europe. "We want to launch Windows Vista in a fully lawful manner and we want to avoid regulatory decisions that could increase security risks for European consumers."The spat over Vista's security features is similar to the disagreement over bundling Media Player, Microsoft's audio and video playing software, into Windows XP. Two and a half years ago the Commission found Microsoft guilty of foreclosing the market for audio and video players by attaching Media Player to its operating system. It ordered the company to offer a second version of Windows with Media Player stripped out and fined Microsoft â¬497 million (US$610 million at the time) for abusing its dominant position in the market. The remedy Microsoft proposed is widely seen as a failure. Sales of the unbundled version of Windows, dubbed Edition N, are almost nonexistent. Nevertheless, Todd said last week that the remedy's true value is as a precedent for future bundling issues that could arise from the launch of future versions of Windows, including Vista. Microsoft was misleading people by implying that a possible delay to Vista's launch in Europe would be due to the regulator, he said "It is not up to us to tell Microsoft what it has to do to Vista. The onus is on Microsoft to design its product in conformity with European competition laws which it is well aware of," he said.
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Less than three months after Microsoft lost a landmark antitrust case in Europe, a Norwegian software company filed a new complaint Thursday, challenging the software giantâs bundling of its Web browser with its Windows operating system.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft will change how desktop search works in its Vista operating system by the end of the year, in response to an antitrust complaint by rival Google Inc., the company said in court documents released late Tuesday.