Vista "junk PC" suit: What did Ballmer know and when did he know it?

Steve Ballmer is fighting against testifying in the Vista "junk PC" class action suit, but a Microsoft motion reveals that he had discussions with Intel and other Microsoft business partners about the controversial scheme. Considering that the ill-fated program may have been launched on behalf of Intel, it would be intriguing to know about the discussions.

The latest filings are part of a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for a marketing scheme in which people claim that Microsoft misled consumers into buying "Windows Vista Capable" PCs, even though the PCs couldn't run the most important features of Vista.

Lawyers suing Microsoft want Ballmer to testify. But Microsoft lawyers are fighting that. On Friday, they filed a motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman to stop the plaintiffs' attorneys from deposing Ballmer later this month.

As part of an attempt to stop Ballmer from testifying, the Microsoft lawyers filed a declaration by Ballmer in which he said:

I was not involved in any of the operational decisions about the Windows Vista Capable program I was not involved in establishing the requirements computers must satisfy to qualify for the Windows Vista Capable program. I was not involved in formulating any marketing strategy or any public messaging surrounding the Windows Vista Capable program. To the best of my recollection, I do not have any unique knowledge of, nor did I have any unique involvement in any decisions regarding the Windows Vista Capable program.

However, the Seattle Post Intelligencer notes that his declaration also says this:

On a few occasions in 2006, I had brief discussions about technical requirements and timing for the Windows Vista Capable program with executives from Microsoft's business partners, including Intel Corporation. However, those discussions took place at a very general level. Moreover, I simply relayed the concerns of Microsoft's business partners to members of Microsoft's management responsible for making the decisions regarding those technical requirements and timing...

What's interesting about that quote is that there's a good deal of evidence that the junk PC scheme was launched at the behest of Intel, in order to help Intel sell an aging chipset, the 915, and meet quarterly earnings numbers.

As I write in my blog, Microsoft executive John Kalkman wrote an email to Scott Di Valerio, who was in charge of the company's relations with PC makers, that the Vista Capable PC scheme was being launched on behalf of Intel:

In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with the 915 graphics embedded.

There's no way to know, of course, if Ballmer knew any of this. And Ballmer, in his recent declaration, says he had no direct knowledge of the junk PC marketing scheme. Still, it would be intriguing to hear his answers to lawyers' questions about it.

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