"Microsoft should not be permitted to use the operating system as a distribution vehicle for its middleware [application] products," said Ken Wasch, president of the Software and Information Industry Association. "To truly level the playing field, we have to prevent Microsoft from using the one distribution vehicle unavailable to anyone else."
Proposed settlement
Dissenting state officials today were still discussing how best to minimize Microsoft's power to bundle applications with the operating system, people said. The proposal to force Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without Internet Explorer or other applications is one of the options being discussed, people said.
The proposed settlement would also require Microsoft to disclose to programmers the code that these applications need to run on Windows.
Some critics have said the definitions of technical information Microsoft must disclose in the proposed settlement are too vague. State antitrust enforcers are considering adopting definitions of the interfaces and technical information contained in interim remedies issued last year by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who ordered the company split in two.
The dissenting states are also considering a provision to force Microsoft to disclose the code at the same time it gives the information to its own application programmers, people said.
Critics also object to a provision that would allow Microsoft to decide what programs are part of the operating system and those that are applications covered by the settlement.
Microsoft's new general counsel, Brad Smith, noted that as long as the company distributes a program separately it would be covered by the settlement. "Everyone has to obey the laws of the market place in addition to the laws of the land," Smith said in an interview this week. Market economics determines "what goes into the operating system and that's not going to change." Kollar-Kotelly, assigned to the case after Jackson was disqualified for talking to reporters, ordered the government and Microsoft to conduct settlement discussions. She will review the settlement to determine whether it is in the public interest.
Legal experts are divided on how much discretion she has to review the settlement. Some argue that because the settlement comes after a 78-day trial in which the company was found to have broken antitrust laws the judge has more discretion to push for changes.
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