Microsoft Antitrust Oversight Extended To 2009

Washington (dbTechno) - The federal judge who is currently looking over the entire U.S. decade of antitrust oversight on Microsoft, has decided that the oversight should be extended two more years.

The federal judge made the decision to extend the oversight for two more years in order to allow a plan to play out which will allow competitors to be on even playing ground with Microsoft.

Last November, many provisions were set to expire. This was the five-year-mark since Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice, along with 17 states reached a settlement.

Under the settlement Microsoft was required to document and share communication protocols with competitors. This would allow non-Windows servers to work with Windows computers.

U.S. District Judge Colleeen Kollar-Kotelly put out a 78-page ruling on Tuesday, stating that “More than five years later, the technical documentation is still not available to licensees in a complete, usable, and certifiably accurate form.”

Both sides have agreed to extend the deadline, which was originally February 2003, to November 12, 2009.