Heated Exchanges Punctuate Microsoft Trial at Halfway Point

Jan 08 1999

Just in case anyone was snoozing, the DoJ's final witness, MIT professor Franklin Fisher, was ready with a wakeup call. When Microsoft lawyer Michael Lacovara suggested that life would be simpler with IE integrated into the operating system, Fisher exploded, saying, "If Microsoft forced upon the world a single browser, that would make things simpler, but that's not what choice is about. If Henry Ford had a monopoly, we'd all be driving black cars." Lacovara said Fisher seemed agitated. The prof replied: "I am agitated. I feel very strongly about this. We're going to live in a Microsoft world. It might be a nice world, but it's not a competitive world."

It provided some nice copy for an otherwise tedious day at the trial. The Wall Street Journal's Mark Boslet and Keith Perine said "tension was high" in the courtroom, and played up Microsoft's contention that Fisher was merely an "echo chamber" for the prosecution. The San Jose Mercury News' David Wilson seized on the battle, calling them "electrifying exchanges" in a report headlined "Sparks Fly at Trial." Further down in the story, Wilson admitted that much of the day was filled with yawn-inducing minutiae.

The New York Times' Steve Lohr decided that, rather than take up needlepoint, he'd make a tidy summation of the government's case, since it was so close to being completed . Lohr said the DoJ's case is an indictment of Redmond's business practices and even its "corporate character." He laid out the major government witnesses and their allegations, and also broke down the strengths and weaknesses of the DoJ's case. Lohr thinks the DoJ's done well proving a monopoly and exclusive contracts, but has weaker arguments on tying and predatory pricing.

Meanwhile, playing to its hard-core audience of tech buyers and sellers, TechWeb focused on Microsoft's request to close Monday's session so that its OEM pricing structure wouldn't be revealed. Computer Reseller News' Daryl Taft explored the issue in some depth, noting that Microsoft licenses its operating system at different prices to different equipment manufacturers and does not want the info public. But a bevy of news orgs, including the Times and AP, have protested the move.

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