• PC World
• » Tech Industry

WASHINGTON -- Microsoft has ripped into Massachusetts, the lone hold-out state in the software giant's federal antitrust settlement, saying the state is pursuing sanctions that would benefit Microsoft competitors, not consumers.

Massachusetts continues to pursue "extreme" antitrust remedies, Microsoft lawyers write in a brief filed with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Microsoft argues that Massachusetts has largely ignored a U.S. District Court's findings and instead repeats its own proposed remedies in a brief it filed in May.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office didn't have an immediate comment.

Tougher Sanctions Sought

The remedies Massachusetts has proposed include requiring Microsoft to unbundle its operating system from all middleware products, but Microsoft argued in court Wednesday that such a clean separation between its OS and middleware applications is nearly impossible. Massachusetts also argues that District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly erred in rejecting requests that Microsoft disclose its Windows application programming interfaces to third-party developers and release the Internet Explorer code in an open-source license. Those were among other remedies rejected by the judge in the federal antitrust case, originally brought by the Department of Justice.

This week West Virginia, the other remaining holdout state, settled its dispute with Microsoft.

Other Litigation

Microsoft also filed a second brief Wednesday in response to an appeal by the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Software and Information Industry Association. The two industry groups are arguing that the Microsoft antitrust settlement is not in the public interest.

"Only Massachusetts and a couple of groups of Microsoft competitors are continuing with their efforts to impose overreaching and punitive terms that the District Court has already determined would harm not just Microsoft, but the software industry and the economy as well," Microsoft spokesperson Jim Desler says in a statement. "Today's filing by Microsoft merely underscores what almost everyone now accepts as fact--that the District Court's thorough review and comprehensive rulings represent a fair and appropriate remedy in this case."

R. Hewitt Pate, assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, issued a statement in support of Microsoft's position Wednesday. The Microsoft settlement is in the public interest, he says, and he promised the Justice Department will actively enforce its terms.

• See more like this:
• Antitrust,
• justice department,
• doj,
• department of justice,
• Microsoft,
• monopoly,
• Sherman,
• Sherman act,
• Kollar-Kotelly,
• suit,
• lawsuit,
• states,
• attorneys general,
• massachusetts