MIT Professor Defending Microsoft Admits Ambiguities In Settlement

The nine states that didn't sign on to the federal settlement want to define what information Microsoft has to divulge to software developers to ensure that third-party software works as well with the Windows operating system as Microsoft's own products do.

The states are hoping to keep Microsoft from using its operating system monopoly--Windows runs on over 90 percent of desktop computers--to gain an unfair advantage over other software publishers.

States' lawyer Kevin Hodges asked Stuart Madnick, the Microsoft witness, if the lack of definition of terms like "interoperability" and "technical information" left the federal settlement "open to interpretation by various people."

"It is ambiguous in that regard," said Madnick, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Many critics of the Justice Department's settlement, including the nine states still suing, have argued that too much of the federal deal is left open to interpretation by Microsoft.

Madnick also testified that he doubts that Microsoft could comply with the states' requirement to develop a version of Windows that would allow computer manufacturers to remove certain features.

Features like the Internet Explorer Web browser and its media player are not discrete programs, Madnick said, they are made up of many separate files that are dependent on each other.

Windows is "much more like a house of cards," he said.

Madnick said he could not name another company that melds a Web browser program into the operating system. The states say Microsoft started doing so to gain market share for Explorer and protect its operating system monopoly.

Other penalties sought by the states would require Microsoft to license its Office business software for use on competing operating systems and distribute the blueprints of its Internet Explorer browser for free.

The federal government and nine other states settled their antitrust case against Microsoft last year for lesser penalties.

The original judge in the antitrust case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ordered Microsoft broken into two companies after concluding that it illegally stifled competitors. An appeals court upheld many of the violations but reversed the breakup order and appointed U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to determine a new punishment.

States that rejected the government's settlement with Microsoft last fall and are pressing for tougher penalties are Iowa, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Kansas, Florida, Minnesota and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

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