The European Commission said Thursday that it will need to spend a number of weeks analyzing the information that Microsoft has presented in its hearing before making a final decision on whether the company will be fined for not complying with a 2004 antitrust ruling.
The hearing, taking place on Thursday and Friday, gives Microsoft an opportunity to argue why it believes it has complied with the ruling.
A Commission representative told ZDNet UK that a decision on whether Microsoft will face fines of up to $2.43 million daily, will not be made for "at least several weeks after the hearing." He was unable to comment on the content of the hearing itself.
As it makes a final effort during two days of hearings to avert daily fines of up to 2 million ($2.4 million) in its ongoing antitrust fight with the European Commission, Microsoft has received sympathy, if not support, from a powerful friend: The U.S. government.
U.S. diplomats have intervened, urging the European Commission as well as all 25 national governments in the European Union to be fair to the company, diplomats and Commission officials said Thursday as the closed-door hearings got underway.
A California judge denied Microsoft's request to subpoena rivals Sun Microsystems Inc. and Oracle in an order issued Wednesday. Microsoft was seeking access to documents from the U.S. vendors in relation to its ongoing battle with the European Commission over whether the company has complied with a 2004 antitrust ruling.
In a six-page order, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Magistrate Judge Patricia Trumbull granted motions from Sun and Oracle to quash the subpoenas and vacate the prior order that had granted Microsoft permission to serve the subpoenas.
Microsoft at the 11th hour has extended support for a popular tool that lets users scan Windows computers for unpatched programs and other security flaws.
The software maker originally planned to end support for version 1.2 of the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer on Friday. However, following user feedback, the company has now extended support until an undetermined date, Doug Neal, program manager at Microsoft, said in an interview Thursday.
"The decision was based on a lot of customer feedback we received that said removing support at this time would create a gap in security update detection for Microsoft products," he said. The decision to extend support was made on Monday, he added.
Microsoft has rebranded FrontBridge Technologies, as well as the secure messaging solutions it acquired along with the company last August.
The company will now be known as Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services, or EHS, and will provide hosted services in four distinct areas: filtering, archiving, continuity and encryption, Eron Kelly, director of Microsoft's EHS, told eWEEK.
It is also the latest addition to the Exchange Server solution portfolio and a key offering in Microsoft's software-as-a-service strategy, he said.
Microsoft plans to release a special "compatibility patch" that will temporarily undo some upcoming changes to Internet Explorer.
The patch will accompany the next security update for IE, scheduled for release on April 11, Microsoft said Wednesday. It reverses changes the update makes to how the Web browser handles Web programs called ActiveX controls. These ActiveX tweaks can impact how certain sites display in the browser, the company said.
The ActiveX modifications are designed to shield Microsoft from liability in a high-profile patent dispute with Eolas Technologies and the University of California.
Microsoft has made new intellectual property licensing initiatives available for its hardware technologies, a first for the Redmond, Wash., software giant.
The new intellectual property licensing initiatives cover its mouse and keyboard technologies; "U2" technology that enables a computer peripheral device to be connected to a computer using either a PS2 or USB auto-sensing interface; its Tilt Wheel; and the Magnifier viewing and editing tool that is used with input devices such as a mouse.
Microsoft will make these technologies broadly available to third-party brands and hardware manufacturers in the mobile and desktop peripherals industry.
European antitrust regulators have voiced competition concerns regarding Microsoft's upcoming Vista operating system, including the possible bundling of Internet search and PDF-like formatting capabilities in the operating system.
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes sent a letter to the software maker last week outlining two main concerns regarding Vista and its conformity with the Commission's March 2004 decision, according to a statement from the Commission on Wednesday.
One concern centered on the possibility that Vista would include features in its products that are already available separately from Microsoft and other companies, such as Internet search, digital rights management and software to create fixed document formats like PDF.
A New York Supreme Court judge has tentatively approved a deal that would order Microsoft to pay up to US$350 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with residents of New York state who purchased software from the company between 1994 and 2004.
Supreme Court Judge Karla Moskowitz is expected to give final approval to the settlement at a hearing on June 13, according to a Web site that tracks the proceedings. The case is one of a number filed in various states against the software vendor.
Microsoft is offering an almost 20 percent discount on its MSN Dial-Up service's regular price, plus a free month of service, partly to nab America Online Inc. dial-up subscribers unhappy with a recent price hike, Microsoft announced Tuesday.
U.S. residents who sign up between now and June 30 will get their first month free, and for the next 12 months they'll be charged US$17.95 per month, instead of $21.95. The offer doesn't require subscribers to commit to a full year of service.
After the first 13 months of service, the discounted rate will lapse and the subscriber will thereafter be charged the regular monthly fee. The offer doesn't apply to current MSN Dial-Up subscribers.