Tuesday, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly extended the court's antitrust oversight of Microsoft an additional two years , until Nov. 12, 2009. The two year extension came because Microsoft hasn't yet turned over technical documentation required by the consent decree from 2002.
The states who were party to the antitrust lawsuit wanted a five year extension due to concerns Microsoft will turn to it's old ways of bullying hardware manufactures and intertwine applications with the Windows operating system.
Why hasn't Microsoft turned over the required documentation? Is this more legal maneuvering, giving Microsoft time to pull some shenanigans on the courts and competitors? Only time will tell.
Many things have changed since the 2002 consent degree, settling the state's antitrust suit against Microsoft. Vista has shipped, Microsoft is in the search engine business, Sliverlight is now around looking to gain supporters, virtualization is all the rage, and Windows Live apps and online services strategy have begun to unfold.
Windows On Demand apps could actually give Microsoft some clean room to operate, making a clear separation between applications (online) and the underlying operating system running on the user's machine. We'll see whether Microsoft leverages this clean separation of application and OS, but if the past is any indicator of the future (which it usually is), it's not likely Microsoft has suddenly got religion on the subject.
Current and future complaints against Microsoft could fan the flames, keeping the current court antitrust oversight in place or even escalating it to further investigations. The US courts in my opinion seem to have forgotten that antitrust and anti-competitive behaviors by megalomaniac companies like Microsoft are what enforcing the antitrust laws are all about. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view this), the EUC has shown they have the stomach to take on Microsoft more forcefully and smackdown antitrust behaviors. Let's hope this political election season renews interests in having a fair playing field for Microsoft and it's competitors. There's a lot of ground that needs catching up.
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Nice spin on the situation!
Wow. Next time please don't mask your objectivity. It has been reported that in her ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she would extend the consent degree until November 2009 because of the “extreme and unforeseen delay in the availability of complete, accurate and usable technical documentation” from Microsoft. But she added that the lengthening “should not be viewed as a sanction against Microsoft,” just a way to give the decree more time to work. Delivering a pat on the back to the big software maker, she added, that Microsoft had been “overwhelmingly cooperative.” Know where in her decree did she state that Microsoft is "untrustworthy". I think in the future your biases and prejudices should be kept in check because in this case they prevent you from objectively commenting on facts of this case.