Microsoft Chief Says States' Sanctions Would Break Windows

by Kristin Palitza

Ballmer added that Microsoft would be forced to offer an infinite number of Windows versions to fulfill the states' requirements, with or without extra features like the Internet Explorer browser, instant messaging software, and the movie and music player, Windows Media Player. Consumers "would no longer see any new innovation in Windows," Ballmer added.

Since last week, Microsoft was slapped with yet another antitrust lawsuit--from archrival Sun Microsystems, which claimed that Microsoft's monopoly status damaged Sun's business to the tune of more than $1 billion. Among other things, Microsoft started shipping its Windows XP desktop operating system last October without support for Sun's Java programming language and this has harmed Sun, the company contends.

Microsoft and the nine states and the District of Columbia--who have not settled with Microsoft in the antitrust lawsuit headed up by the U.S. government--have been holding the depositions in preparation for a remedy hearing that will start next week. While nine of the 18 states are still pursuing the case, the other nine states have agreed to sign the proposed settlement, which would oblige Microsoft to make public some of the Windows source code and allow computer manufacturers to pair competitive software products with the Windows OS. The dissenting states want Microsoft to provide a stripped-down Windows version that comes without several components that are today a fix part of Windows. Microsoft claims those components, particularly Internet Explorer, are an integral part of the Windows OS, and separating them would destroy the operating system.

"There are things in [the remedy proposal] which erode the economic value of Windows," Ballmer said. "We'd have to make our source code fully available. People would be able to look at it, study it, [and] clone it. Given the [states'] definition of middleware, it means every interface they would need to be able to see, and the only way to do that would be to publish the source code of Windows."

In response to Ballmer's vision that the Windows operating system would be doomed, the nine states and the District of Columbia filed a revised remedy proposal, which now requires Microsoft to offer "a modular version [of the Windows operating systems] that will allow equipment manufacturers and others to make their own decisions on adding middleware products that consumers want, such as browsers or media players." Microsoft would also be permitted to offer a fully integrated version of the operating system.

"The modified measures should deflate Microsoft's overblown rhetoric and apocalyptic predictions about the proposed remedies," said Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal in a statement. "The modifications focus the proposals more sharply on the very serious violations of law and harm to consumers found conclusively by two federal courts."

The non-settling states' remedy proposal requires Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without any "middleware" components. The states list Internet browsers, network operating systems, e-mail client software, media creation, delivery and playback software, instant messaging software, voice recognition software, digital imaging software, Java Virtue Machine, calendaring, handheld computing device synchronization software, directories, and directory services and management software as middleware. Ballmer complained that the states' middleware definition "refers to any piece of software." The only parts that would not be middleware under this definition are disk compression and memory management, he said. Ballmer further said that "basically anybody, any OEM, any large customer, anybody who is a third-party licensee" can tell Microsoft to pull any piece of software out of Windows operating system products, which must continue to work without any performance degradation. "That's an unmanageable, that's an impossible task," Ballmer said. "The operating system won't run if you pull out its pieces, because it depends on itself. So if you pull out a piece, it won't run."

Ballmer said that Sun could, for example, buy 10,000 copies of Windows and constantly generate work requests to Microsoft "to torture Microsoft." "Any rogue who wants to can do it, or anybody who wants to pay an OEM. Somebody could say, 'Look, I want to make Microsoft's life miserable, so I'll pay you $10 million a year to torture Microsoft.'"

The lawyer questioned Ballmer also about application programming interfaces (APIs) used by third-party software to work well with Windows. Developers complained for years that Microsoft had a high number of undocumented APIs that gave Microsoft the advantage to optimize its own software for Windows. Ballmer admitted that there are undocumented APIs, but added that it will be impossible for Microsoft to document all previously undocumented internal interfaces. "I couldn't hazard a guess [as to] how many thousands [of interfaces that Windows has]. And any notion that says, 'Just go document internal interfaces' [...] one can't comply with it; it's not achievable. It's ridiculous," Ballmer said. "The only way to comply effectively is to remove the product from the market," which Ballmer argued "ensures that consumers are harmed" because "there will be no new Windows PCs shipped, let alone no new releases of Windows."

What really seems inconceivable is that Microsoft doesn't have documents that specify all of the undocumented APIs for its own internal use. Presumably, Microsoft doesn't create APIs and then burn, shred, or delete all information that leads to them.

In a separate deposition, the lawyer questioned Microsoft Senior Vice President James Allchin, who is in charge of Windows development. The litigating states might focus on Windows Embedded to stress their argument that Microsoft would be able to offer a modular version of the Windows OS. Asked if Windows Embedded is architected in components, Allchin said, "we are trying to get there." The states have been particularly interested in Microsoft's Embedded product, a modular version of Windows that includes about 10,000 components that can be assembled into custom products. Allchin was responsible for the launch of Windows XP Embedded last November.

In the deposition, Allchin said he cannot estimate the number of components that comprise Windows XP, and said he does not consider XP a componentized product. Later in the interview, however, he said XP could be "to a certain degree" described as modular. Ballmer said he was only "roughly" familiar with Windows Embedded, and he was not familiar with Window CE .NET, a similar product.