US DOJ keeping firm eye on Windows 7 and IE 8

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 23 June 2008 08:51

Opinion and Analysis

A new ‘joint status’ report – half authored by US states and the DOJ from an enforcement viewpoint, and half authored by Microsoft from a compliance viewpoint – has been released. It shows the progress made so far in keeping Microsoft  “in compliance” with the antitrust judgements made against it. How’s it going?

The US Department of Justice, in conjunction with several US states known as the “New York Group” and the “California Group” (the Plaintiffs) has filed a new report, co-authored with Microsoft (the Defendant).

Entitled the “Joint status report on Microsoft’s compliance with the Final Judgments”, it’s an interim report relating to “recent enforcement activities”.

Section II of the report discusses the “Plaintiff’s efforts to enforce the Final Judgements”, while Section III of the report discusses “Microsoft’s efforts to comply with the Final Judgments” – with neither side necessarily “adopting the views expressed by the other”.

What this means is that work Microsoft is doing with Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8 and the Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP) which covers interoperability between programs and platforms is being scrutinised by the Plaintiffs to ensure that these future versions comply with the “Final Judgment”, with Microsoft now offering to once again give monthly updates, instead of quarterly updates, on its efforts.

There is evidence that Microsoft has been co-operating, but in some instances has reverted to a bit of a “go slow” which has been noted, with Microsoft asked to quicken its pace once more and make its reports much easier to understand.

The Plaintiffs have appointed a “Technical Committee” (TC) of its own to “review the results of Microsoft’s project to rewrite” technical documentation relating to the MCPP, which has been described in detail in previous reports, and is letting Microsoft know what it thinks, and what additional work it still needs to do.

The TC is also conducting “ongoing testing of Windows Vista, Vista Service Pack ("SP") 1, XP SP 3, Windows Media Player 11, Internet Explorer ("IE") 7 and the IE 8 beta, to discover any remaining middleware-related issues.”

They’re also looking at builds of Windows 7 that Microsoft has provided to “conduct middleware-related tests in an effort to assure that bugs fixed in Vista do not re-appear in the next operating system, as well as to assure Final Judgment compliance generally.”

In addition, the TC's “on-going review of Windows' treatment of middleware defaults is being expanded to include an operating system source code scan in an effort to determine whether some commonality in the code accounts for default overrides. The TC also is investigating certain default browser overrides, which Microsoft asserts arise from reasonable technical requirements that competing browsers apparently do not implement. The TC will discuss its findings with Microsoft once this inquiry is concluded.”

This extends to IE 8 in beta, and the TC is even talking to PC manufacturers and OEMs to ensure that default mechanisms in Vista and other options available to OEMs are sticking to the Final Judgments.

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