States Want Microsoft To Unbundle AppsStates Want Microsoft To Unbundle Apps

Nine U.S. states and the District of Columbia asked a federal judge Friday to consider new remedies in the Microsoft antitrust case that would require the company to unbundle some software applications from Windows and put its Web-browser code in the public domain.

The states, led by California, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, oppose an agreement reached by Microsoft, the Department of Justice, and nine other states Nov. 2 that would settle a 3-year-old lawsuit against the company. That five-year agreement would give PC makers more flexibility to alter the Windows desktop, ban exclusive contracts by Microsoft, require the company to disclose the APIs its middleware uses to talk to Windows, and establish a three-person technical committee to oversee Microsoft's compliance.

But attorneys general of the dissenting states--which also include Florida, Utah, Kansas, Minnesota, and West Virginia--say those remedies don't go far enough to address Microsoft's market dominance and anti-competitive behavior. "If the [new] remedy is accepted by the court, this will accomplish our goals of restoring competition and innovation," Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said during a conference call with reporters Friday.

Reilly and his colleagues want Microsoft to offer PC makers a version of Windows that doesn't include Internet Explorer, Office, and Media Player. That could blunt Microsoft's ability to create markets for those products. They also want Microsoft to make Internet Explorer's source code available to other companies in order to help make competitors' programs run as smoothly with the browser as Microsoft's apps do. As well, the states want Microsoft to include a Java Runtime Environment in Windows--something Microsoft removed in its new Windows XP.

A federal court last year found Microsoft guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly on PC operating systems, and an appeals court upheld the ruling this year. But the appeals court threw out other findings against the company and rejected a previous order that Microsoft be broken up.

Microsoft said in a statement that the dissenting states' proposed remedies "are not commensurate with what is left of the case." Microsoft added, "The Court of Appeals decision drastically narrowed the liability issues and provides the best road map as we move forward with these remedy proceedings."

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, overseeing the remedies phase of the proceedings, must approve any settlement in the case. Remedy hearings are scheduled for March.