Testimony of Compaq Official Proves at Odds With Coworkers'
By MARK BOSLET
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- A senior Compaq Computer Corp. executive once more found his testimony at odds with that of a pair of more junior Compaq executives as a government attorney revisited Microsoft Corp.'s relationship with the personal-computer maker in a Friday session at the antitrust trial.
In a far less turbulent morning of questioning than Thursday's raucous session, Compaq Senior Vice President John T. Rose defended his company's close relationship with the software giant and insisted Microsoft never prevented Compaq's use of the rival browser from Netscape Communications Corp.
But a far different picture emerged from depositions and e-mail messages from Compaq officials Celeste Dunn and Stephen Decker. Government attorneys, who have charged Microsoft with using its monopoly power against rivals, hoped to show through Mr. Rose's trial appearance that Compaq bowed to Microsoft pressure.
Microsoft attorneys, who called Mr. Rose in their defense, have argued that Compaq made decisions to favor its Internet Explorer browser independently of any pressure.
At one point, Mr. Rose said a 1996 Internet agreement with Microsoft, which included promoting Internet Explorer, did nothing to limit the company's strategy of also using Netscape Navigator. But a May 1996 e-mail from Ms. Dunn describes the agreement as harming Compaq and costing it about $9 million in annual revenue from Netscape and America Online Inc.
Mr. Rose also gave different explanations why the formal written agreement of an Aug. 8, 1995, conference-call pact wasn't drawn up and signed until June 1996.
Accounting complexities and new product packaging held up the production of the written agreement, he said. On Thursday, he had indicated it took lawyers that long to draw the contract up.
In some of his most important testimony, Mr. Rose again insisted that pressure from AOL led Compaq product managers to remove icons for Internet Explorer browser and MSN from the opening screens of its Presario computers in 1995 and 1996. Compaq had agreed to feature AOL's icon above other online links, and Microsoft attorney Richard Pepperman entered into evidence a letter from AOL threatening to terminate the agreement unless the icon were better displayed.
When Microsoft learned its icons had been pulled, the company rushed off a May 1996 letter also threatening to terminate Compaq's Windows license, Mr. Rose said. The icons were restored and AOL agreement was renegotiated.
Mr. Rose said he first learned of the Microsoft icon restrictions during the August 1995 conference call, and that Compaq personnel, who negotiated the AOL agreement, hadn't been on the call and didn't know of them.
However, Ms. Dunn, in her deposition, again appeared to contradict Mr. Rose. In the October 1998 deposition, she said Microsoft was informed that its icons were to be removed before Compaq took them off its Presario and months before the termination letter. The company, at that time, didn't complain, she said.
In a separate development, Compaq General Counsel Tom Siekman said Compaq didn't turn over sensitive information about Be Inc.'s BeOS operating system to Microsoft. Government attorney David Boies, in court Thursday, had accused Compaq of doing so, and Be's chief executive, in news reports, said he believed the transfer had taken place.
Mr. Siekman, outside of court, said Compaq inadvertently told Microsoft it was having talks with Be, but that the information didn't violate a Be non-disclosure agreement. |
