DOJ Has Windows 7, Why Not You?

Here's something Microsoft probably didn't want more of: government oversight of Windows development.

Windows 7 already is being reviewed by U.S. government technical appointees, something many Microsoft executives probably couldn't have much imagined happening a year ago.

Under the terms of Microsoft's November 2001 Justice Department settlement and final court judgment issued about a year later, a government-sanctioned "Technical Committee" has overseen Windows development. The TC is responsible for ensuring that Microsoft complies with the terms of the final judgment, investigating complaints about Microsoft abuses and regularly reporting on the company's compliance.

The TC required some changes before the operating system's release. Each quarter, the Justice Department, Microsoft and states' attorneys general file a joint "status report," largely based on the TC's activities. The process should have mostly ended on Nov. 12. But Google (and some other Microsoft competitors) requested an extension, and U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly gave it to them: two more years of government oversight.

So Microsoft finds itself in the uneasy position of having the TC look over its shoulder during Windows 7 development. Don't get too close, TC, because Microsoft has a big body bubble—that invisible surrounding comfort zone. On June 17, the day I went out of blogging service because of a catastrophic hard drive crash, Microsoft and government trustbusters filed a new status report. So I'm blogging a day late and a couple gigabytes short. From the document:

Microsoft has recently authorized TC access to another early build of Windows 7 (the successor to Vista), which the TC will review. As the builds of Windows 7 progress, the TC will conduct middleware-related tests in an effort to assure that bugs fixed in Vista do not reappear in the next operating system, as well as to assure final judgment compliance generally.

The evaluation is revealing. It's my contention that Microsoft plans to ship Windows 7 for holiday 2009—rather than in 2010 as some pundits surmise—and release a developer preview in October (to coincide with the Professional Developer Conference). The TC evaluation fits nicely with such a release timetable.

The Technical Committee is most concerned with the four categories of so-called middleware covered under the court's final judgment: e-mail, instant messaging, media playback and Web browsing. There appears already to be some contention about middleware defaults. From the court filing:

The TC's on-going review of Windows' treatment of middleware defaults is being expanded to include an operating system source code scan in an effort to determine whether some commonality in the code accounts for default overrides. The TC also is investigating certain default browser overrides, which Microsoft asserts arise from reasonable technical requirements that competing browsers apparently do not implement. The TC will discuss its findings with Microsoft once this inquiry is concluded.

The are more upcoming goodies being reviewed. "Microsoft has released publicly a beta version of IE 8," according to the court filing. "The TC is testing the beta, and familiarizing itself with the operation of IE 8's more significant new features."

Microsoft has to live with the review, but I can't believe that company executives like it. The settlement and final judgment impacted Microsoft in a way probably unexpected by trustbusters: The company all but abandoned development in three of the four middleware categories, with respect to Windows. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express development languished until 2004-2005, after Mozilla released Firefox and Thunderbird, and Windows Vista development pushed ahead in earnest. Meanwhile, Microsoft shifted its instant messaging development away from Windows—to Office Communicator for businesses and MSN Messenger for Windows. Vista dropped Windows Messenger altogether.

Today, with the exception of Internet Explorer, Microsoft is pushing the same so-called middleware down from Windows Live to the operating system. The ties are ever so strong, but the products and services aren't part of Windows by default. But I don't doubt that Microsoft executives would like them to be.

The TC reviewed Windows Vista, but its middleware assessment didn't satisfy Google, which complained about search defaults. Google's complaints led Microsoft to proactively change Vista search, action that partly precipitated the two-year extension of government oversight.

I see IE 8 as being hugely vulnerable to competitor complaints. Microsoft is making a godawful amount of Internet Explorer changes and taking risks with application and Web site compatibility. Surely somebody will try to interfere with the changes for competitive gain. Will it be Apple, Google or Mozilla? Opera has got a complaint in Europe already, why not the United States, too?