COURT NOTES: Last Monday, the Association for Competitive Technology trade group filed a 'friend of the court' document in the Microsoft antitrust trial. A 'friend of the court' filing, or amicus curiae, is not required by law but is often presented to the court in an attempt to clarify certain issues. The amicus curiae in question here, while conceding that Ms is a monopoly and did many of the things it was accused of, nevertheless asked Judge Jackson to find Microsoft not guilty of illegal conduct because that activity benefits consumers. ACT is backed by legal advisors and attorneys general from past presidential administrations, but the trade group's credibility is questionable because of its membership list: ACT was formed only two years ago, about the same time Microsoft's legal trouble starting building, and Microsoft is one of its most prominent dues-paying members.
Then another amicus curiae was submitted to the court by a competing trade group, the Software and Information Industry Association. The SIIA also receives dues from Microsoft, but this one was filed was to support the government's case. In fact, the SIIA filing directly attacks ACT, pointing out (as we did above) that the group was created "specifically to oppose the enforcement of the antitrust laws against Microsoft."
The next day, two more amicus curiae documents were filed along with Microsoft's required rebut to the DoJ's earlier 'finding of law' rebuttal document [see NewsSource, Jan 31]. Microsoft's rebuttal did nothing but rewalk the same defense first brought out earlier in this case, accusing the DoJ of trying to rewrite antitrust law and force the courts to implement unprecedented restrictions on technology products. Microsoft also filed a separate document based on copyright law asking for the dismissal of several claims filed by the individual states.
That was followed by an amicus curiae from Internet law expert Lawrence Lessig, who was recruited in 1998 to provide Judge Jackson with advisory briefings throughout the trial. That document too broke no new ground, once again summarizing the evolution of Internet Explorer from a standalone browser to an artificially integrated 'system component'. An additional document on behalf of the government's case was later handed in by Judge Robert Bork, a long time critic of Microsoft. His filing essentially echoed that of the SIAA.

Adding to last week's changes in the development path for Windows [see NewsSource, Jan 31], Microsoft has informed Internet Explorer beta testers that the next major revision of that product will be delayed. No reason was given for the setback, but we expect it has a connection to last week's changes since Explorer 6 will have closer ties to Windows than its predecessors. [A special NewsSource report summarizing Microsoft's future development plans will be completed next week, so watch for more information]

And while we're on the subject of Windows, Microsoft last week made an official announcement concerning the name of the project being called 'millennium'. According to Microsoft's own statement, the Windows 98 upgrade expected to ship in May will be known as Microsoft Windows Millennial Edition, or Windows Me. As recently as a week ago [see NewsSource, Jan. 31], we were predicting that the product would be titled 'Windows 98 Third-Edition' but apparently Microsoft has no desire to continue using the 98 tag into the 21st century - even if it is the same basic product.
According to company officials, adding Me to the product name will clear up consumer confusion about Windows 2000 being an upgrade to 98, which it most definitely is not (unless you happen to have $2000 laying around). And while switching from 98 to Me and from NT to 2000 certainly won't be confusing to the average well-educated Windows user, Microsoft decided to reinforce that message by actually having images on the WinMe box that suggest it as a consumer-level upgrade.

As Microsoft prepares to battle in court with Sun over Java later this year, the Java virtual machine included with Windows versions of Internet Explorer 4 and 5 has been found insecure. According to a report written by Dr. Hiromitsu Takagi of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the hole his department discovered in Microsoft's JVM allows any cracker to insert a single line of code into Java applets and retrieve files from a user's computer. The same security breach also permits 'malicious' programmers to read messages in Outlook Express. Microsoft says it has been notified about the problem, but made no comment on the bug's existence or the possibility of a patch.

MSN's Expedia travel reservation site, after reporting smaller 2nd-quarter losses than expected, announced plans to buy two competitors, VacationSpot.com and Travelscape. Expedia was spun off from Ms last year [see NewsSource, Nov. 15 '99] in an IPO, but The Behemoth still owns an estimated 80% of the company.

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