After a year long court battle against Microsoft"s "downgrade pathways" from Windows Vista to Windows XP, the antitrust lawsuit has been dismissed by a federal judge.
According to ComputerWorld, the order was issed on Monday to put an end to the lawsuit which had been filed last February. The complaint, lodged by Emma Alvarado accused Microsoft of pushing OEM"s to force consumers who wanted to run Windows XP to buy Windows Vista/Windows 7 first, before they were allowed to downgrade back to Windows XP.
The judge rejected the accusations, because Emma had not proved that Microsoft was benefiting from the downgrade practices which were implemented by Microsoft and it"s OEMs. The judge believed that; "If anything, it appears that Plaintiff [Emma Alvarado] obtained two versions of Microsoft"s operating software for the price of one."
Emma claimed that she paid $59.25 to Lenovo to downgrade her laptop from Vista to XP, Microsoft denied it had profited. "Microsoft does not charge or receive any additional royalty if a customer exercises those [downgrade] rights," a Microsoft spokesman said last year. Instead, the OEMs are actually charging for the labour and additional media.
The Computerworld report points out that "Computer makers, not Microsoft, charged users the additional fees for downgrading a new PC from Vista to XP at the factory. However, Alvarado did not name Lenovo Group Ltd. in her lawsuit."
"We"re pleased the Court agreed that Plaintiff"s complaint failed to state a viable claim and dismissed it in its entirety." Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in an email to Computerworld.