Apple Senior Vice President Avadis Tevanian Jr.

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

The following are Eric Bennett's excerpts of written testimony by 
Apple Senior Vice President Avadis Tevanian Jr.  Mr. Tevanian's 
testimony appears to be very damaging evidence against Microsoft.  
Jamie
                 
<----------------begin email by Eric Bennett--------------------->

Subject: Excerpts of Tevanian's testimony [long]
   Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 00:29:26 -0500 (EST)
   From: "Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>
     To:  Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO <am-info@essential.org>

The DOJ has posted Tevanian's testimony.  You can get a PDF file of it here:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_testimony.htm

Since the PDF file is over 2 megs (it is simply a digitized scan of
documents), I have included some of the more relevant sections here.  I
omitted the information about Office and the QT patent lawsuit, since it
didn't seem to contain any information that we have not already heard about.

Here are my excerpts:

"Mr. [Eric] Engstrom [of Microsoft's multimedia division] noted at the
meeting that Microsoft's Bill Gates was not interested in an authoring
program because the market for this product was too small.  He assured the
Apple representatives, however, that if Microsoft needed to make an
investment in providing authoring tools in order to push Apple out of the
[multimedia] playback market, then Microsoft would devote all the necessary
resources to accomplish this goal."

..

"The problems we were experiencing in running QuickTime on Windows with IE
4.0--problems that had not existed with earlier versions of IE--suggested
that Microsoft would use its control of Windows to harm QuickTime.  I was
particularly concerned about Microsoft's bundling of its multimedia
technology with its IE for the Mac OS.  This would give Microsoft access to
the Mac OS operating system while, at the same time, Microsoft was seeking
to exclude Apple's multimedia technology from Windows."

..

"On Feb 3, 1998, Mr. Jobs sent an email message to Mr. Gates expressing
Apple's concerns about the threatening behavior of Microsoft's employees.
On Feb 13, 1998, I had a lunch meeting in Cupertino with Don Bradford of
Microsoft.  The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the problems
described in Mr. Jobs' message to Mr. Gates.  At this meeting, Mr. Bradford
conveyed the same proposal that Microsoft had presented in the past.
Speficially, if Apple would abandon the playback segment of the business,
Microsoft would be willing to endorse QuickTime as the solution for the
authoring portion.  Mr. Bradford told me that Mr. Gates thought that this
would be a way to resolve our dispute."

..

"[In April 1998 Mr. Engstrom told Apple's Phil Schiller,] 'We're going to
compete fiercly on multimedia playback, and we won't let anybody have
playback in Windows.  We consider that part of the operating system, so
you're going to have to give up multimedia playback on Windows."

..

"Microsoft's proposal, the substance of which is contained in documents
marked as Trial Exhibit 912, entitled QuickTime/DirectX Convergence
Proposal, includes the following provisions: (1) the parties would
cross-license their codecs to each other and collaborate on all future
codecs, (2) Apple must adopt Microsoft's inferior DirectX run-time platform
for Windows, (3) Apple must adopt Microsoft's inferior, proprietary
streaming technology, and (4) Apple must adopt Microsoft's new, inferior
AAF file format for authoring.  Microsoft's proposal amounted to a forced
abandonment of one of Apple's most successful and innovative products. . .
. Accordingly, Steve Jobs told Microsoft that Apple had no interest in
giving up QuickTime.  Microsoft's response conveyed a simple message:
Microsoft would drive Apple out of the multimedia business."

..

"When Microsoft introduced IE 3.0, it touted the ability of its browser to
use plug-ins developed for Netscape Navigator.  After the introduction of
IE 3.0, Apple was able to introduce a QuickTime plug-in that was fully
compatible with both the Netscape Navigator and IE 3.0 browsers.  However,
with the successive releases of Microsoft's IE 4.0, MS Windows 98, and
Microsoft multimedia software, Apple has seen steady degradation of
QuickTime's capabiltiy to play back a variety of QuickTime-compatible media
file formats while operating with Microsoft's IE running on the Windows
operating system.  The chart in attachment 4 illustrates the increasing
degradation of QuickTime's performance as Microsoft has introduced greater
technical incompatibilities between QuickTime and Microsoft products."

..

"Microsoft has used undocumented changes to the Windows registry to impair
the ability of QuickTime to play numerous multimedia file types.  In some
cases, IE 4.0 bypasses QuickTime and uses Microsoft software to play a
multimedia file from a web server.  For many formats, the Microsoft
software is not able to process the file at all.  In other cases, the
Microsoft software will play the file but with a severely degraded quality.
. . . In order to overcome these limitations imposed by Microsoft, Apple
made a significant effort to reverse engineer the Windows registry software
and the IE 4.0 registry preferences so that the multimedia file types would
be properly associated with the QuickTime plug-in.  Apple's efforts to
correct these defects achieved only limited success.  Thus, Apple was
forced to ship a QuickTime product having degraded functionality for the
Windows/IE 4.0 platform."

..

"We attempted to expedite cooperation with Microsoft by establishing a
dialogue at the executive level of both companies. . . . Mr. Pierry from
Microsoft responded that Apple should be developing a Microsoft ActiveX
control.  Such a control was not necessary with IE 3.0, which supported
industry standard plug-ins.  ActiveX controls are Microsoft's proprietary
format for extending the functionality of the system; ActiveX controls are
supported only in Internet Explorer and only on the Windows operating
system. . . . . [Mr. Schaaff of Apple inquired] whether there was any way
to achieve QuickTime playback without rewriting everything as an ActiveX
control. . . . Mr. Schaaff received no response from Microsoft."

..

"Compaq first approached Apple to inquire about licensing opportunities for
QuickTime 3 [around Feb 1998]. . . .  Mr. Federman [of Compaq] told Mr.
Schiller [of Apple] that he was anxious to get QuickTime 3 onto the
Presario products as soon as possible.  Compaq's inquiry . . . followed
Compaq's attendance at the SPA conference in late 1997.  Microsoft had
announced at the conference that it would henceforth support only its new
multimedia APIs.  This announcement meant that any existing software that
worked to play multimedia through other APIs would not work with the new
content types, such as digital video disks.  As a result, content providers
would have to re-author their content in order to sell their products as a
DVD title using Microsoft's multimedia software.  At the SPA conference,
Apple presented its QuickTime software.  Apple representatives explained
that with the QuickTime 3 format, content providers could transfer their
existing CD titles into a DVD product with relative ease."

..

"Mr. David Oblecz, a procurement engineer for Compaq's Presario division,
approached Mr. Schiller's product manager, Mr. Steve Bannerman, and
expressed excitement about QuickTime 3.  [At a meeting with Compaq in Texas
in March 1998,] the questions and statements that followed reflected a
clear conflict between Compaq engineers and the Compaq marketing employees.
On the one hand, the engineering partitipants expressed great excitement
about the technology embodied in QuickTime 3.  On the other hand, the
comments made by Compaq's marketing managers showed some resistance to
bundling any QuickTime product with Compaq computers."

..

"Mr Oblecz's frustration became so great that he stood up and explain to
Compaq's marketing team that the technology paths Microsoft had chosen in
the past had failed Compaq, and he doubted that Microsoft's latest strategy
would fare any better.  Mr. Oblecz stated that Apple had the solution in
QuickTime, for which there was a much clearer opportunity for success. . .
. 'Compaq has been screwed before in multimedia by Microsoft,' Mr. Oblecz
exclaimed, and he reiterated the point that Microsoft had made at the SPA
conference."

..

"At the conclusion of the meeting, the Compaq engineering team stated that
they were very pleased with what Apple had presented.  As Mr. Schiller was
leaving the meeting, Steven Decker, the Director of Procurement in the
Presario Division, came up to him and said, 'You have to understand what's
going on here.  They're very afraid of doing anything to upset Microsoft.
We are very wary of bundling anything that would upset Microsoft because
they touch us in so many places.'  As week after the meeting, Apple was
informed that Compaq had decided not to move forward with any licensing
plan for QuickTime 3.  Compaq, moreover, had also decided to remove all
QuickTime products that were currently being bundled with its computers."

..

"Microsoft has pressured AVID, a video software producer, to stop
supporting QuickTime or face the loss of Microsoft's assistance in the sale
of Avid's new video products.  [In a meeting with Cliff Jencks of AVID,
Apple's Schiller] asked Mr. Jencks to provide an example of such pressure
from Microsoft.  Mr. Jencks explained that Microsoft was about to announce
a new channel for selling software and that channel would be part of the
Windows 98 ("Memphis") products.  This new software channel, he was told,
would allow ISVs to sell software to users directly from the user's
desktop.  Mr. Jencks told Mr. Schiller that he had approached Microsoft and
the Memphis team about being part of the new software channel to sell their
Cinema software.  The Memphis team told him that as long as Cinema
supported QuickTime, his product would not be part of that sales channel.
Mr. Jencks explained that he attempted to explore with Microsoft the
possibility of AVID developing new products for the software channel.  He
was told by Microsoft, 'That's not good enough.  You need to top QuickTime
out of your product if you want to be in this channel.' . . . Microsoft's
pressure obviously succeeded.  On April 6, 1998, at the meeting of the
National Association of Broadcasters, Microsoft introduced its AAF format
for multimedia authoring.  Joining Microsoft as a partner in this
announcement was AVID."

..

"As my testimony illustrates, Microsoft does not hesitate to use its
operating system monopoly power and application program dominance to try to
eliminate competition, acquire control of new markets, and block innovation
that could challenge its position."


--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry
377 Olin Chemistry Lab

Education, n.  That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the
foolish their lack of understanding.
-Ambrose Bierce