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To: Steve Smith who wrote (4455)	11/14/1998 6:30:00 AM
From: EPS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4903

NYT for private use only, November 14, 1998 Microsoft Browser Is Said to Irk Some Big Corporate Customers By JOEL BRINKLEY WASHINGTON -- Some of the nation's largest companies, including Citibank and Federal Express, view the Microsoft Corporation's strategy of integrating Internet software with the Windows operating system as a costly inconvenience with few benefits, according to an independent consultant serving as an expert witness in the Government's antitrust suit against Microsoft. Microsoft's decision to tie its Web browser to the operating system lies at the core of the Government's lawsuit. The company argues that integrating software for browsing the World Wide Web is a natural evolution for personal-computer operating systems -- and a vital competitive step. But the Government charges that it is a cynical and illegal tactic chosen only to give Microsoft a lopsided advantage in its competition with the Netscape Communications Corporation, maker of the principal competing browser. Whatever the truth, Glenn E. Weadock, president of Independent Software Inc., and the next witness in the case, says many corporations are not happy about Microsoft's strategy. Weadock is scheduled to testify starting on Monday, the fifth week of the trial. In written testimony made public this evening, he said: "No corporate PC manager, in fact no one outside of Microsoft, has ever described a Web browser to me as operating system software. Organizations typically consider browser software as applications software, like E-mail or word processing." Many managers want all of the companies' computers to run the same software, he adds, and do not appreciate the additional trouble and expense of trying to remove access to Microsoft's browser, if the company has decided to use another one. In a statement issued this evening, Microsoft said, " Weadock's testimony is a collection of opinions, not fact." Other companies such as Dell, Monsanto, Siemens, Nabisco and Toyota, the statement said, have "embraced the Windows platform" and "realize the benefits of integration every day." Working for the Justice Department, Weadock -- an author, teacher, consultant and speaker on the subject of personal computer software since 1982 -- interviewed technology managers at 13 large corporations, including J. C. Penney, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and the U.S. Steel Group. The companies were chosen by the Department of Justice. Among them were some that had expressed interest in the Government's case, and others that were chosen randomly, Weadock's testimony said. In every case, the technology managers said they wanted the ability to choose Web browsers on their own and therefore found it inconvenient that Microsoft had tried to make the choice for them. Microsoft often notes that computer users are free to install Netscape's browser or any other if they choose. But Weadock said the technology managers told him they did not like having two browsers on their computers because duplicative software wasted space on the computer systems and held the potential to create "conflicts with other applications and with company developed" software. Weadock found that the quandary had cost Microsoft some business because "some companies are resisting or electing not to use Windows 98 largely or in part because it would force them to have a two-browser desktop." He mentioned only one such company by name: Chrysler. But Weadock found that Microsoft's strategy is having the company's desired effect in other cases. For example, he quotes an unidentified Boeing executive as telling a Justice Department investigator that the company decided to begin using Internet Explorer principally because "we do not have a choice." "The integration between Internet Explorer and the operating system cannot be fully disabled," the Boeing executive was quoted as saying. "Our only choice is whether we install two browsers or just install Internet Explorer." In its statement, Microsoft argued that "the Government has handpicked companies and individuals which support its claim that the integration of Internet Explorer technologies into Windows is bad for customers." By choosing only these people, the statement adds, "the Government handed Weadock a stacked deck."