Microsoft Antitrust case heats up

Microsoft lawyers scored a direct hit on the credibility of one of the key witnesses in current antitrust lawsuit court hearings, as the witness, a cable TV industry executive admitted he once offered Microsoft to publicly oppose the antitrust case in exchange for completing a business transaction with the software giant.

Mitchell Kertzman, CEO, Liberate Technologies, a major cable TV provider, which negotiated with Microsoft last year for the take-over of its interactive TV programming business unit. Kertzman offered to tell journalists he was opposed to a break-up of Microsoft. 

In court this week, Kertzman testified on behalf of the nine states that want tougher sanctions against Microsoft. He told US District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that Microsoft was demanding that in return for investments in the Cable TV companies, they use the Windows operating systems software instead of Java or other competing technologies for set-top boxes. 

Kertzman said Microsoft is keen on keeping other platforms from getting a strong position in the interactive TV world because interactive television software poses a platform threat to Windows not unlike the threat once posed by the Internet browser popularized by Netscape. The software allows people to use their televisions to do the same things they do on their computers. "There are far more television owners in the world today than there are owners of personal computers," said
Kertzman.

Microsoft attorneys severely undermined Kertzman credibility by confronting him with email messages showing he was willing to oppose the antitrust case if Microsoft agreed to sell its interactive TV business unit to Liberate.

Kertzman also conceded he had publicly referred to Microsoft and its executives as 'murderers', 'thugs', and 'the Freddy Krueger of software',
referring to the mass-murderer of horror movie fame. But, Kertzman said those views stemmed from his experience in dealing with Microsoft while he was CEO of Sybase. He further said that the Microsoft tried to 'bully' him into pulling a Sybase product off the market because it competed with a similar Microsoft product. When he refused Microsoft retaliated by bundling its product into the Windows NT operating system.

SV News Service

Washington

Plam witness says Microsoft denied access to key software

A palm executive told federal District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that Microsoft gave the company access to a key programming tool only after it learned Palm was ready to testify against the company in the anti-trust lawsuit.

Palm executive Michael Mace testified that Microsoft had refused Palm access to the so called VSIP tool set for two years. Microsoft had also set stringent conditions for allowing Palm handhelds to work with Microsoft's .NET Internet software. VSIP (Visual Studio Integration Program) is supposed to be open to the whole computer industry. VSIP allows software developers who write their programs for Windows to convert them to run on the Palm OS. But, Microsoft tried to force Palm to deploy Microsoft's NET technologies as a condition for allowing the company to use
VSIP. Only after Palm agreed to testify against Microsoft in the antitrust case did Microsoft provide the access to
VSIP. 

"We are pleased that Palm has gained access to VSIP, but the process by which we got there was very disturbing," Mace said. "Microsoft sent us the contract only after we had documented clearly that Microsoft had been using VSIP entry to get leverage over us in the NET negotiations and after it was becoming clear that Palm was participating in the current court proceedings," he further added.

Testimony such as that from Palm could serve to underscores the need for more stringent sanctions against Microsoft as demanded by the 9 states opposing the settlement agreement between the company and the US Justice Department. The Palm example shows Microsoft's willingness, despite the anti-trust case, to leverage its monopoly power against smaller companies. While Microsoft lawyers have done a good job of discrediting either the witnesses or their testimony, it will be tough for Judge Kollar-Kotelly not to recognize that Microsoft continues to act like a bully. Thus, additional constraints against the company would be a likely outcome of the current court proceedings.