Microsoft Aide Testifies Firm Didn't Threaten PC Makers
By KEITH PERINE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- A senior Microsoft Corp. executive defended his company's business practices, saying the software giant allows computer makers broad flexibility to add rivals' software to machines equipped with Microsoft's Windows operating system.
In written testimony, Senior Vice President Joachim Kempin said Microsoft doesn't pressure personal-computer makers through pricing or by threatening to withhold the Windows software license they need to stay in business. He said that normal and legal business practices had been distorted "as malevolent attempts to strong-arm [PC makers] into doing things against their will." He added that "to the best of my knowledge, no one at Microsoft ever threatened [a PC maker] with negative consequences" if it chose to use software from a rival, Netscape Communications Corp.
Late Wednesday, Mr. Kempin took the stand after Microsoft's lawyers displayed a video intended to show how PC makers were free to place other software "icons" for rival products on the start-up screen of new PCs, a key distribution channel for online services.
Government trial counsel David Boies noted that while computer makers can insert an Internet sign-up screen into Windows, it can't include Netscape's Web browser icon.
"They can put any one of 3,500 Internet service vendors there, but they couldn't put Netscape there?" Mr. Boies asked.
"No," Mr. Kempin replied.
Mr. Boies also displayed an internal document from computer maker Gateway Inc., which said that selecting an alternate browser when using Windows with built-in Microsoft Web-browsing software resulted in "much slower system performance." Mr. Kempin said he wasn't aware of Gateway's sentiment and disagreed with the conclusion.
"Microsoft did not give Gateway the option to uninstall [Web browser] Internet Explorer?" Mr. Boies asked.
"That's correct," Mr. Kempin replied. "What else do you expect?"
"That's the question we're here to answer," Mr. Boies shot back.
Earlier Wednesday, a Microsoft manager for multimedia technology, Eric Engstrom, told the court that his company hadn't "sabotaged" Apple Computer Inc.'s QuickTime software program, as a government witness had alleged. Apple Vice President Avadis Tevanian Jr. told the court that the software glitches occurred as Microsoft was pressing Apple to scale back its development of the QuickTime program for Windows.
Mr. Engstrom called Dr. Tevanian's charge "completely unfounded," adding "at Microsoft, our company would never do something like that." He said that "extensive research" at Microsoft and separate reviews by three independent laboratories concluded that most of QuickTime's flaws were because of Apple programming errors.
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