Microsoft in more anti-trust hot water

The Troika project was a part of the Volish out-of-court settlement approved by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and was supposed to help Microsoft comply with the her order to share proprietary communications protocols with rivals.

That was in 2002 and so far Microsoft has been unable to finish the project and has asked for an extension.

The judge was furious at what she saw as Volish paw dragging. She told them that if it was an issue of resources then Microsoft had to put them in.

She rhetorically asked "what does it take to get it done".

She also wanted to know why Microsoft had proposed to portable music player manufacturers that if they shipped Windows Media Player in their software packages, they could include only it and no competing media software.

She said that this proposal was made in the last three months and completely violates the antitrust settlement, Kollar-Kotelly said.

To be fair Microsoft said that was an accident and it had reversed its decision on the move after someone complained, but Kollar-Kotelly was stunned that these sorts of things should be happening this far into the process. She wanted to know why Vole didn't have a process to catch anti-trust actions like the Media Player proposal.

Microsoft says that it remains "fully committed to full compliance" and the delay in Troika was necessary because Microsoft underestimated the scope of the project.

Vole will have to be in court in November to show that it has made some progess with the project. Looks like the Americans are wishing they had followed the EC and got a bit tougher with the Vole. More at Computerworld, here. µ