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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearded One who wrote (22517)	2/1/1999 12:19:00 PM
From: Rusty Johnson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Nailed by Its Own E-Mail? Microsoft is going to have to reveal documents that may show Windows and Internet Explorer can exist separately Business Week Online Justice is going to prove Microsoft's integration of Windows and Internet Explorer is illegal? Fat chance, said most observers, even Justice's supporters. After all, only a month after Justice filed its suit last May, a circuit court in a related case noted that browser integration would be acceptable if it yielded an improvement in performance that consumers couldn't achieve on their own. The panel said Microsoft seemed to have shown there were "benefits to its integrated design as compared to an operating system combined with a stand-alone browser such as Netscape's Navigator." But in the past few months, Justice has been scoring points on this issue. Several government witnesses have testified that the same benefits can be achieved by letting personal-computer makers bundle another browser into the operating system. And a raft of E-mail from top Microsoft executives indicates that the company embedded the browser into the operating system with the intention of beating rival Netscape Communications Corp. -- and not because the company sought to offer new benefits to consumers. On Jan. 28, Microsoft received the biggest blow yet in its once-solid defense that its browser and operating system are one product that cannot be considered an illegal tie under antitrust law. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the company to release internal documents -- an E-mail and spreadsheet -- that appear to show it could be possible to separate Windows code from the browsing code. Microsoft had argued that these documents were protected under the rules of attorney-client privilege. BAD FOR THE DEFENSE. Microsoft has steadfastly claimed that its browser is so tightly woven into Windows 98 that it cannot be removed without degrading the operating system. But in an Oct. 21 E-mail, Microsoft employee David D'Souza wrote that within a Windows 98 file, he was able to separate particular functions that were used only for browsing the Internet from other functions used only for Windows. Some of the functions were for shared purposes. He noted that "this might not be useful" to Microsoft's defense. D'Souza's analysis followed earlier testimony by government witness Edward W. Felten of Princeton University, who said he had developed software that removed browser code without harming the operating system. He also noted that there was no technological reason why Microsoft had to mix code for Windows and browsers into shared files. In written testimony submitted on Jan. 28, senior Microsoft executive James Allchin wrote that Felten's software merely hid Web-browsing functionality from view rather than remove it. Allchin takes the witness stand on Feb. 1, and Justice's lead litigator, David Boies, says he intends to question the exec about D'Souza's documents. Boies also is sure to question Allchin about a series of E-mail indicating that Microsoft may have decided to integrate its browser into Windows as a way to harm Netscape. In a January, 1997, E-mail, Allchin wrote: "I am conviced we have to use Windows -- this is the one thing they [Netscape] don't have.... We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more -- Windows integration. If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE [Internet Explorer] and Windows together." Sure, Microsoft appears to be pursuing a couple of different agendas here. But when there's mixed motive under antitrust law, a court can decide which motive dominates. In this case, Jackson can decide that while Microsoft may have sought benefits by integrating, its predominant motive was to hurt competition. The government is trying to convince Jackson that, even if there were some technological benefit to integration, that benefit can be achieved in other ways and that Microsoft's primary intention was to harm Netscape. PRESSED WITNESS. Jackson was clearly struggling with that balancing act on Jan. 26 when Microsoft executive Paul Maritz was on the stand. Justice offered up a few internal Microsoft E-mails that showed some company officials were proposing that a few pieces of the browser be removed and sold separately as part of the Windows 98 upgrade. Responding to these proposals, Maritz noted in a July, 1997, E-mail, "It's tempting, but we have to remember that getting browser share up to 50% (or more) is still the major goal." Judge Jackson pressed Maritz on the reasons why he preferred to keep the browser intact. "You wanted it to ship as an integrated product," the judge noted, and the "the primary objective of doing it was to increase browser share." Justice also has submitted depositions from PC makers who said they would prefer a choice of browsers. Many of their customers, they say, prefer Netscape, and others prefer that their operating system not include a browser at all. Justice is trying to prove that there was a separate market for browsers. If the government can meet this test, it has gone a long way toward proving that the integration was an illegal tie of two products -- and not a single product, as Microsoft claims.

To: Bearded One who wrote (22517)	2/2/1999 1:15:00 AM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Here's another article: Federal Filings Newswires Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Monday, February 1, 1999 DOJ Attacks Accuracy of MSFT Video Demo -4- WASHINGTON (FFBN) -- The Justice Department attacked the accuracy of the videotaped demonstration Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) had presented to the court earlier in the day regarding browser integration. Specifically, lead DOJ Counsel David Boies noted that an error message supposedly appears in Microsoft's Money 98 program after a prototype browser removal program is run. The prototype was created by Dr. Edward Felten, a Princeton University professor and DOJ expert witness. On cross examination, Microsoft's James Allchin said the error message pops up the first time someone tries to access Money 98, but on a second attempt there is no error message because the Money program figures out how to get around the Felten block. Boies contends that if Netscape Communications Corp.'s (NSCP) Navigator has been added to the computer and the Felten program has been run then there is no error message at all. The videotape demonstration asserted that the Money 98 program was one of the items Felten's code broke in Windows 98 and that even adding Navigator did not fix the problem. Allchin said he was not aware of Boies' contention and that he would test it himself and report back to the court tomorrow. In a second example of a misstatement in the video, Boies pointed out that in the Caldera Technologies Corp. operating system there are ways other than through the browser to view the hard disk information. Microsoft's video had indicated that there was no other way to graphically access the hard disk in the Caldera open Linux operating system without the built-in browser. Allchin said from the witness stand that he believed that statement in the video was in error. Allchin will resume his testimony tomorrow. Patti Dennis, Esq. Legal Editor ======================================================== Boies will be Boies, and he's doing a damn good job. I never dreamed this was going to be a "last man standing" type of case. When DOJ filed this case, I thought they would just crush Microsoft and that would be the end of it. Instead, they have put on a case with overwhelming evidence in some areas, but also with some major weaknesses. However, it looks from here, deep in the peanut gallery, based on the articles I've seen so far, that Microsoft's defense is shaping up to be even worse.