Microsoft Pri0

Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan.

E-mail Sharon| Subscribe | Blog Home| Brier Dudley's Blog

November 17, 2008 5:41 PM

Latest batch of documents in Vista Capable class action unsealed

Posted by Benjamin J. Romano

Plaintiffs in the ongoing Vista Capable class action suit today filed another large batch of unsealed internal Microsoft communications and documents in the case. We're going through them now.

These e-mails and other documents are, in part, the source material the plaintiffs are drawing on in their motion for partial summary judgment in the case. If they're anything like the earlier batches of unsealed documents in the case, there's sure to be interesting exchanges between Microsoft executives -- showing disagreement internally around the Vista Capable marketing program in late 2005 and early 2006 -- as well as communications with Microsoft's computer-maker partners.

Update, Tuesday morning: See this story for details from the e-mails of how executives debated whether to lower the standards for the Vista Capable marketing program to appease one of the company's most important partners, chip maker Intel, and once the decision was made, how the company scrambled to contain the fallout with other partners.

Microsoft successfully argued to keep a substantial chunk of this exhibit under wraps. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman ruled last week that the exhibit would be refiled as public record, but with approximately 102 pages redacted covering from this exhibit, covering sensitive business information including documents described as "OEM Marketing Bulletin," "Windows Vista Transition Marketing Plan and Capable PC Update," "Strategic OEM & IHV WinHEC Pre-Brief," "Updated Windows Vista Capable Marketing Program Information." The ruling was in keeping with her earlier practice on unsealing documents of this nature.

Exhibit A was filed in 10 parts, with several large chunks redacted. The documents are available here:

Part 1 (PDF, 24 pages) Totally redacted;

Part 2 (PDF, 25 pages) E-mail begins on page 6;
Part 3 (PDF, 30 pages)
Part 4 (PDF, 25 pages)
Part 5 (PDF, 25 pages)
Part 6 (PDF, 25 pages)
Part 7 (PDF, 25 pages) E-mail begins on page 13;
Part 8 (PDF, 25 pages) E-mail begins on page 10;
Part 9 (PDF, 25 pages) E-mail begins on page 19;
Part 10 (PDF, 22 pages)

We'll update this post after we've had a chance to read through them. Meanwhile, please feel free to point out any passages you find interesting in the comments.

For background, see this story from last week based on an earlier batch of unsealed documents.

Digg | Newsvine