To understand what the proposed December 2001 DoJ settlement means, it's important to look at how it defines certain terms.

Consideration means any monetary payment or the provision of nonstandard licensing terms that favor a particular company; technical, marketing, and sales support; enabling programs (such as tools for developers to create Windows-compatible applications); product information; information about future plans; developer support; hardware or software certification or approval; or permission to display trademarks, icons, or logos.

Microsoft middleware product means the functionality provided by the following products, and any of their successors, in the Windows desktop operating system (OS):

• Internet Explorer
• Windows Media Player
• Windows Messenger
• Outlook Express
• Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

The term also applies to any Internet browser, networked audio/video client software, e-mail client software, or instant messaging software that Microsoft bundles with its desktop OS in the future, regardless of whether it is positioned as a "successor" to these existing products.

Finally, this applies to any other functionality provided by a Windows desktop OS in the future that meets all of the following requirements:

• Was, in the year before the release of the desktop OS, distributed as a separate product by Microsoft or a Microsoft-acquired entity
• Is similar to the functionality provided by a non-Microsoft middleware product
• Is trademarked.

One place where this definition might leave Microsoft vulnerable is in its future database technology. Microsoft has hinted that it has plans to add document management functionality, such as workflow and change control, to the Windows file system. (See "Corporate Portal Strategy in Flux" on page 3 of the Nov. 2001 Update.) But if the company releases this functionality in a separate product first (such as SharePoint Portal Server), challengers like Oracle might argue that the new Windows file system meets the definition of a Microsoft middleware product, and further argue that Microsoft must allow OEMs to remove it and replace it with technologies such as Oracle's Internet File System.

Non-Microsoft middleware product means any product that runs on the Windows desktop OS and meets all of the following criteria:

• It exposes functionality to ISVs through published APIs.
• If ported to a non-Microsoft OS, it could make it easier for ISVs whose applications rely on that functionality to port their products to that non-Microsoft OS.
• At least 1 million copies of it were distributed in the United States in the last year.

Windows operating system product means the software code distributed commercially by Microsoft for personal computers. This pointedly excludes the company's server OSs. It also leaves out OSs for many other computing devices, such as handheld computers (which use Windows CE), TV set-top boxes (this applies to Microsoft TV, which is based on Windows CE), game consoles (the Xbox uses a componentized version of Windows 2000), and telephones (Microsoft is working on a Windows CE "Stinger" platform for mobile phones).

More interestingly, this definition contains a crucial exception: "The software code that comprises a Microsoft operating system product shall be determined by Microsoft in its sole discretion." This seems to overlook the finding that Microsoft illegally "commingled" code from Internet Explorer with Windows to make the two products harder to separate.

Microsoft platform product means any Microsoft middleware product or Microsoft operating system product, as defined above.

Back to associated article: Effects of the Antitrust Settlement