The Department of Justice told the US District Court for the
District of Columbia that an extension was necessary due to
Microsoft’s difficulty in improving the technical documentation it
provides to licensees.
The Department’s Antitrust Division made its views known as part
of its Joint Status Report to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
Friday's status report was the sixth of the six-month reports
requested by the court. The Antitrust Division enforces the final
judgment in conjunction with antitrust enforcers from 17 states and
the District of Columbia, which along with Microsoft joined in
Friday's filing with the court.
The 2002 settlement requires that Microsoft make available to
competing server software developers, on reasonable and
non-discriminatory terms, certain technology used by Microsoft to
make its server operating systems interoperate with client PCs
running the Windows operating system.
Microsoft must provide licensees with technical documentation
that is designed to enable them to use this technology in their own
server products so that those products work better with
Windows.
In past status reports, the Department reported to the court its
concerns with the quality of the technical documentation Microsoft
provides to licensees under this program and with the length of
time it is taking Microsoft to improve that documentation.
After reviewing its progress in improving the technical
documentation, Microsoft itself concluded that a broader “reset” of
its efforts to improve the technical documentation would be more
effective and efficient than continuing with the current
approach.
The Government agreed, so Microsoft will rewrite significant
portions of the documentation in an effort to substantially improve
the overall quality of the documentation. As this project will take
time to complete, and since the final judgment otherwise would
expire in autumn 2007, the Department told Microsoft that it would
be necessary to request an extension of the term of the final
judgment from the court.
Microsoft has also agreed that the Department and state
antitrust enforcement agencies may, at their discretion, apply to
the court in autumn 2009 for an additional extension of all or part
of the extended provisions of the final judgment for a period of up
to three additional years, through November 2012.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General J Bruce McDonald said: "This
extension will ensure that companies interested in licensing the
communications protocols receive the benefit of complete and
accurate documentation for the full period of time provided by the
court’s final judgment."
According to Microsoft, the licensing program currently has 31
licensees. It says it has resulted in the release into the
marketplace of a dozen products based on the use of the technical
documentation.
The extension awaits court approval.
