States seek more oversight of Microsoft

Ending court oversight of Microsoft's business practices in November would not allow enough time to consider the antitrust implications of the new Windows Vista operating system, a group of states led by California said in a filing Thursday.
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversees Microsoft Corp.'s adherence to the terms of a 2002 antitrust settlement, asked the software maker, the Justice Department and the group of states to submit reports by Thursday on the effectiveness of the consent decree. The oversight aimed to make it possible for Microsoft's middleware competitors ? who build software that links the operating system with everyday programs ? to compete fairly, even if Microsoft's operating system monopoly persisted. "Microsoft has not directly contravened these provisions," said the states' report, which was submitted by the office of California Attorney General Jerry Brown. But the California group said the consent decree has not led to any more competition. The report cites Microsoft's continued dominance in the operating system market and the fact that few, if any, PC makers have sold computers with non-Microsoft Web browsers set as the default, among other examples. One of the casualties of Microsoft's business practices was Netscape. Its Web browser led the field until Microsoft started bundling its own Internet Explorer with Windows and restricting how PC makers installed competing products. It was eventually bought by AOL. Antitrust concerns about Microsoft began surfacing with news of a Federal Trade Commission investigation in 1991, and in 1994 the software maker agreed to modify its contracts with PC makers to ease restrictions, which ended renewed U.S. and European antitrust investigations.Continue At Source


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