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April 14, 2009
Late Friday afternoon, a federal judge refused to restore class-action status to the Vista lawsuit,
handing Microsoft its second major victory in the case since February.
U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman denied a motion by the plaintiffs to recertify a smaller group
of Windows users in the lawsuit that has accused Microsoft of misleading computer buyers in 2006 and 2007 by
letting computer makers slap the "Vista Capable" sticker on PCs and laptops that could run only Home Basic.
Additionally, it was the second time in as many months that Pechman's ruling was in Microsoft's favor.
By rejecting the class action status, Pechman again narrowed the pool of potential plaintiffs from
thousands to the five or six now involved. That would dramatically slash Microsoft's financial exposure --
which had been estimated to be as high as $8.5 billion -- if it eventually loses the case.
Judge Pechman effectively dismissed all plaintiffs' arguments to grant class-action status to two new
groups as well: people who had purchased PCs during Microsoft's Express Upgrade program and those who bought
"Vista Capable" machines that wouldn't run the new operating system's Aero graphical user interface.
Pechman's order was the second since Feb. 18 denying class-action status to the lawsuit, and it limits
the plaintiffs' options to appealing her decision or moving forward with a retrial of the half-dozen
individual claims.
The judge also rejected the plaintiffs' move to create a new class out of consumers who bought
Windows XP systems that later would be able to run only the lowest-priced version of Vista, Home Basic.
For much of the two-year-old case, lawyers for the plaintiffs have argued that because Home Basic lacked
many of the flashy features Microsoft had promoted in Vista -- most important, the Aero interface -- it
was not really Vista.
Judge Pechman wrote in her order, referring to the upgrade program Microsoft ran with its OEM partners
from October 2006 to March 2007 to give PC buyers free or discounted copies of Vista.
She wrote "as before, Plaintiffs underlying claim is that they were deceived by the Vista marketing
campaign. Because evidence relating to each Plaintiff's consumer choice is not amenable to class-wide
analysis, an Express Upgrade class is inappropriate."
"Plaintiffs proposed Express Upgrade class suffers from the same security holes as its original
deception-theory based Vista Capable class."
The judge added "plaintiffs' claim all center on the grounds that computers lacking WDDM compatibility cannot achieve
full Vista Basic functionality. This is only potentially deceptive in the contest of Microsoft's
'Vista Capable' operating system label."
"Without the label there is nothing deceptive or unfair about selling non-WDDM compatible computers. Because
the fulcrum of Plaintiffs' claim is the label and because the label is most accurately characterized as an
affirmative representation, Plaintiffs case does not 'primarily' allege omissions," Judge Pechman ruled.
Source: RSN.
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