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The Justice Department is trying to determine whether Microsoft is sharing details about its Windows operating system with competitors as required under a proposed antitrust settlement, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Investigators want to know whether Microsoft has withheld formulas that could allow rivals to write programs that work well with Windows, the newspaper's Web site reported Wednesday night, quoting unidentified executives of software companies.
The rivals include Sun Microsystems Inc. and Red Hat Inc.
A spokesman for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said Wednesday that the company's actions comply with the proposed settlement in a four-year antitrust case against the software giant.
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo told the Times he could not comment because "all of this is pending before the court."
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., is expected to rule on the settlement in the near future. It was reached last November, but California and eight states that sued Microsoft in 1998 have asked her to reject the deal.
After a 19 month trial, another judge ruled in June 2000 that Microsoft had violated state and federal antitrust laws by using its power to extend its dominance to Web browsers, multimedia software and other emerging technology. Windows software runs on more than 90 percent of all personal computers.
The proposed settlement requires Microsoft to give competitors access to so called software communications protocols in Windows so they can write programs that connect PCs to the Internet and with one another, even if they run on disparate operating systems.
Microsoft said the conditions for those who want access to its intellectual property are widely used in the industry.
"We agreed to license our intellectual property as part of the settlement agreement with the Justice Department," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler. "We set up a straightforward process, using industry standards for people to do so. It's a confidential process."
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