Unimpressed by the fiery stream of legal protest pouring forth from Redmond, the US Justice Department today accused Microsoft of twisting and defying a recent court order and asked that the software behemoth be forced to obey the ruling, which requires it to offer Windows 95 without tying it to the Internet Explorer browser.
Microsoft "improperly seeks to rewrite the court's injunction," said a Justice Department statement filed with the court today. "The court should end Microsoft's disobedience and bring it into compliance."
Microsoft, thumbing its nose at the court's preliminary injunction, offered computer-makers their choice of the status quo Windows-plus-IE-package, an old version of Windows, or an IE-stripped version which the company said would not work. The company argued that those alternatives were required by US District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's 11 December order. Microsoft has appealed the judge's injunction and asked that its appeal be expedited.
The government says Microsoft took a twisted approach in its response, zeroing in on a snippet of the reasoning within the body of Judge Jackson's 19-page decision, rather than complying with the orders he issued on its final page.
"The injunction does not compel any particular mode of compliance with its proscription as long as Microsoft avoids the forbidden conditioning," the Justice Department said. The "forbidden conditioning" refers to the practice of requiring PC-makers to place Internet Explorer on the desktop of machines running the Windows OS.
Jackson will conduct a hearing on the case on 13 January - at which time Microsoft has promised to introduce new evidence showing that the removal of the IE icon from the desktop will unleash new troubles.
The Justice Department is seeking a $1 million-a-day fine for the company's alleged contempt of court, based on a 1995 consent decree in which Microsoft agreed not to use its OS market strength to bulldoze into new territory.
Reuters contributed to this report.
