Burst.com case filing

By popular demand, here's the 60-page public version of the Oct. 29 court filing in which Burst.com Inc. accuses Microsoft of creating "institutionalized practices to make sure that incriminating documents disappeared." (PDF, 2.4 mb) The filing, unsealed earlier this week, has been in the news the past few days. (Thanks, John, for the suggestion.)

In the filing, Burst says Microsoft's policy resulted in the destruction of documents critical to its case, one of the few remaining antitrust actions against the Redmond company. Microsoft's e-mail retention practices have been an ongoing issue in the Burst suit, but the latest filing zeroes in on a January 2000 message in which Microsoft Windows chief Jim Allchin instructed employees not to archive their e-mail after 30 days. Here's a portion of the Allchin message, as excerpted in the filing:

"This is not something you get to decide. This is company policy. Do not think this is something that only applies to a few people. Do not think it will be ok if I do this; it hasn't caused any problems so far. Do not archive your mail. Do not be foolish. 30 days."

Microsoft is expected to give its side of the story in a formal response to the Burst filing in the coming weeks. Stacy Drake, a spokeswoman for the company, pointed out that Allchin's initial message was followed by another that excluded documents relating to legal proceedings from the 30-day deletion policy.

"Over the past several years, we have produced literally millions and millions of documents and e-mails for all the various legal cases we’ve been involved in, and we’ve been completely forthcoming in all document requests in this case, as well," she said.

The Burst filing acknowledges Allchin's second message but argues that the broader policy still resulted in the loss of documents needed for its case and others against the company.

See coverage by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, InternetNews.com and IDG News Service. As John points out, PBS commentator Robert Cringely has also tracked this issue closely, most recently in this Oct. 7 column.

Posted by Todd Bishop at November 18, 2004 09:14 AM