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Microsoft's Longhorn to face U.S. antitrust review

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CIOL Bureau
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SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp. said it will meet with representatives of the U.S. Justice Department next month to review whether the next version of its Windows operating system complies with the company's antitrust settlement with the government.



The meeting, according to Department of Justice documents, to be held in mid-February as Microsoft prepares to release a preliminary version of the program, code-named Longhorn, to software developers and partners later this year.



Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is planning to release the next version of its Windows operating system, which runs on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers, in 2006.



Antitrust regulators are looking to see if Longhorn will be designed to offer choices for competing programs that run on top of Windows, such as alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser and software for playing audio and video files.



Government prosecutors said they have drawn up a list of issues they "wish to track as Microsoft progresses in its development of Longhorn, enabling early detection and resolution of any potential areas of concern," according to a Justice Department report issued earlier this week.



Microsoft's antitrust lawsuit, which reached final settlement in late 2002, was sparked by charges that Microsoft used its monopoly to unfairly promote its own software. Microsoft recently agreed to sell a stripped-down version of Windows without a media player to comply with a European Union antitrust regulator's concerns over market competition.



"All development at Microsoft is done with full consideration and understanding of our obligations and commitment under the consent decree and final judgments," said Microsoft Spokeswoman Stacy Drake. "We think it's important to be working closely and openly with the Department of Justice and states early in the Longhorn development process to address any questions and concerns now."



The report said, however, that Microsoft had not provided technical documentation that it is required to share with competitors in a format that could make it easy for them to review such information. Microsoft said it would make such documentation available via PDF documents by mid-2005.

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