DOJ shifts tactics in MS trial

["John D. Thomas" <johnd@gw2kbbs.com>]

Possibly good news on the MS front.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_lggraph_display/0,3442,2122954,00.html

Title: DOJ shifts tactics in MS trial

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DOJ shifts tactics in MS trial
By Michael Moeller, PC Week Online
July 27, 1998 11:42 AM PT

With some six weeks to go before they face off against Microsoft Corp. in court, federal and state attorneys are racing to shore up their combined case with last-minute depositions and discovery.

The Department of Justice and the state attorneys general will not try to prove that the Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) engaged in illegally tying two products, according to sources inside state attorneys general offices and the DOJ.

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Instead, the government will try to show that Microsoft's integration of Internet Explorer into Windows, combined with its exclusionary contracts with ISPs (Internet service providers) and PC makers, were part of a coordinated effort to destroy any encroachment on its operating system hegemony.

'Grand strategy'
"The integration of the browser was not about tying but was part of a grand strategy to preserve their monopoly. The contracts with ISPs and OEMs are just to cement that strategy," said a high-level source inside one state attorney general's office.

Sources added that new documents that Microsoft recently turned over to the government may provide further evidence of such a strategy.

Government lawyers have recently deposed a number of Microsoft employees, including CEO Bill Gates, sources said.

Microsoft officials declined to comment on the depositions or documents.

The moves by the states and the DOJ come after the states filed an amended complaint last week that removed alleged anticompetitive actions concerning Office and Outlook Express from their list of charges against Microsoft.

One month only
The reason, according to government officials, was to focus their efforts on the main issue of the case. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who will hear the case, has limited both sides to a dozen witnesses and has said he plans to spend only a month hearing the case.

Despite those parameters, the government continues to investigate other Microsoft actions not currently included in the antitrust complaint. One area is streaming media technology; on Thursday, RealNetworks Inc. CEO Rob Glaser told the Senate Judiciary Committee he had been deposed by the DOJ.

The Justice Department declined to comment on its investigation.

Updated July 28, 1998 9:36 AM PT
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