Californians get more time on Microsoft claims
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The software giant is doling out vouchers to people who bought Windows, Excel or Word between 1995 and 2001.
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Several California cities and counties, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, sued Microsoft Corp. on Friday, accusing the software giant of illegally charging inflated prices for its products because of monopoly control of the personal computer operating system market.
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U.S. states are requesting a five-year extension of the 2002 antitrust judgment against Microsoft.
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By Shelli Derobertis, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Calif.  Dec.
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SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Seeking to be more competitive with Microsoft Corp...
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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.
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Four California county and city governments, including those of Los Angeles and San Francisco , sued Microsoft late last week for abusing its monopoly market power and overcharging them for Windows and various Microsoft Office products.
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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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WASHINGTON - Six states, including Massachusetts, sought a five-year extension of an antitrust court decree imposed on Microsoft Corp. , arguing that continued judicial supervision is needed to prevent the world's largest software company from crushing challenges to its Windows operating system monopoly.
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SAN FRANCISCO Several California cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, are suing Microsoft for what could amount to billions of dollars.
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The award for fees and costs comes in a case in which Microsoft agreed to allocate $1.1 billion for California consumers. By Associated Press.
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(InfoWorld) - The independent examiner overseeing CA Inc.'s financial reporting has been given a little more time to help the troubled software vendor. The U.S. attorney, the SEC, and the company agreed to extend the term of examiner Lee S. Richards, III, until May 1, 2007, CA said Thursday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The term had been set to expire this Saturday. The extension was necessary, "given the control environment and commission-related material weaknesses" at the Islandia, New York-based company formerly known as Computer Associates Inc. Richards was appointed independent examiner in March 2005 and was chartered with overseeing CA financial reporting under a 2004 Deferred Prosecution Agreement between the company and the Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York. CA will escape prosecution if it agrees to pay US$225 million to a restitution fund to compensate victims of its fraud and takes various steps to strengthen its corporate governance and cooperate with government investigators. Richards is a partner with Richards Kibbe & Orbe LLP, a law firm based in New York. CA is trying to recover from a financial scandal that rocked the company and the extension was also granted as CA continues to reorganize its finance department under a new chief financial officer. Sanjay Kumar, the former CEO of CA, and Stephen Richards, the company's former worldwide sales head, both pleaded guilty to financial fraud charges in federal District Court April 26. They were accused of fraudulent accounting practices, including falsely reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for licensing agreements during fiscal quarters in which the deals had not yet been finalized. Other CA executives previously convicted of similar charges were preparing to testify against Kumar and Richards. CA's financial weakness was detailed in its annual report filed July 31, for the fiscal year ended March 31. The filing was delayed as the company conducted a review and restatement of its stock options granting practices. The restatement increased non-cash, pre-tax stock based compensation expense by an aggregate of $342 million for fiscal years 1996 through 2006, the company reported.
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Microsoft Corp., state regulators and the Department of Justice (DOJ) will get more time to argue whether the antitrust settlement against the company should be extended until 2012.
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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.
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Several California cities and counties, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, have sued Microsoft Corporation, accusing the software giant of illegally charging inflated prices for its products because of monopoly control of the personal computer
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Faced with concerns from IT professionals, Microsoft Corp. gave users more time to prepare for Windows XP Service Pack 2 by doubling the time a special registry key will prevent PCs from automatically downloading and installing the mammoth update.
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Agilent couldn't agree more Silicon Justice Some companies in California don't have to worry about their employees' online activity as much as they used to - at least for the time being.â¦