Anyone else think Intel's testimony might be the most damaging to Microsoft? Microsoft might be getting a nice slap on the wrist...
joey
DOJ Says Microsoft Bullied Intel
(11/09/98 1:50 p.m. ET)
By Darryl K. Taft, Computer Reseller News
Microsoft strong-armed not only competitors, but also
Intel, its biggest ally, according to testimony Monday in
the Microsoft antitrust case.
Intel vice president Steven McGeady, appearing under
subpoena, said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates got very
upset at Intel's software investment, "became enraged"
over work Intel engineers did in the company's Internet
Architecture Laboratory, and even asked Intel chairman
Andy Grove to shut the lab, according to an Aug. 2,
1995, memo from McGeady.
The lab remained open, and Microsoft later unveiled
support for Digital Equipment's Alpha processor, a rival
to Intel's chips.
McGeady also described an October 1995 meeting in
which Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel and the
Redmond, Wash., software giant discussed Internet
road maps and at which Microsoft vice president Paul
Maritz made some "very colorful statements that stand
out in my memory."
At the meeting, Maritz talked of Microsoft's plan to "cut
off Netscape's air supply" by giving browsers away,
and that Microsoft planned to take the HTML standard
to the point where it would become incompatible with
Netscape's browser. That effort later became DHTML
.
Government attorney David Boies asked if Gates made
himself clear when he talked about Microsoft's not
being prepared to support a new generation of Intel
processors, the MMX and P-7 chips. McGeady said it
was clear if Microsoft was not supportive, those chips
"would be useless in the marketplace."
"The threat was credible and very terrifying," McGeady
said.
Microsoft also was angered by Intel's Native Signal
Processing effort, which it viewed as encroaching on its
territory, McGeady said. At the Microsoft WinHec
conference of 1995, Microsoft's eyes were opened
regarding the scope of NSP.
"They are upset with us being in 'their' OS space,"
wrote Gerald Holzhammer, an Intel Internet
Architecture Laboratory staffer at the time.
McGeady testified that Gates "hated" the NSP initiative
and wanted Intel to kill it, which Intel did. McGeady
said he was unaware at the time if there was a quid pro
quo between Gates and Grove.
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