Microsoft trims witness list, cites strong case

Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON: Microsoft Corp. told a federal judge on Monday it will not call

nearly half of its remaining defense witnesses, citing "progress made so

far" in defending itself from severe antitrust sanctions.

Attorneys for Microsoft told US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that

eight of the 17 witnesses remaining on its list would not take the stand,

including four Microsoft executives, company spokesman Jim Desler said.

"After reviewing the progress made so far in our case, as well as

assessing the states' witnesses and what we believe are shortcomings in the

states' case, Microsoft has decided we will not call several individuals who

were originally on our witness list," Desler said.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is still on the list of potential

witnesses, Desler said. But the company removed executives from four companies,

including Best Buy Co. and Charter Communications Inc.

"We don't believe that we need them," Desler said. But an official

with the holdout states said he doubts Microsoft is feeling so confident. Tom

Greene, an assistant to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said he thinks

Microsoft trimmed its witness list as a way of "reducing potential

vulnerabilities in their case".

The decision comes a week after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates took the

witness stand to plead the company's case against severe sanctions he said would

cripple the company and harm consumers.

The states want a version of Windows with removable features, like the

Internet browser and media player, to level the playing field for Microsoft

competitors.

The proceedings are entering their seventh week. The states presented 15

witnesses; Microsoft is up to its twelfth. The software giant reached a

settlement with the Justice Department and nine other states last November. That

agreement is designed to give computer makers more freedom to feature

non-Microsoft software on the machines they sell.

But nine states, including California, Massachusetts and Iowa, have refused

to go along with the settlement, saying it is inadequate and won't prevent

future antitrust violations. The latest witness, Microsoft Vice President Robert

Short on Monday denied charges that the company tries to gain advantage by

making Windows operating system incompatible with rivals' software.

Significant efforts to share

Short said the software giant makes "significant efforts" to make

its operating system work well with competitors' software. "I emphatically

disagree with the suggestion that Microsoft deliberately introduces

incompatibilities to prevent our competitors' software from working with our

products," Short said in written testimony.

Short's testimony takes issue with comments by executives from competitors

Novell Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Red Hat Inc., who told the judge in

earlier testimony that she should force Microsoft to disclose more of the inner

workings of Windows.

Short said different versions of Windows work better with rivals' software

over time because they adhere to a growing number of industry standards and he

cited examples in which the company is cooperating with some of its most bitter

rivals to make software programs "interoperate" with each other.

Short said Microsoft had also designed the business versions of Windows 2000

and Windows XP to work well with non-Microsoft computer server software.

"Given these efforts, the notion that Microsoft 'retaliates' against

software developers who do not do what Microsoft wants is completely

unfounded," Short said.

An attorney representing the states told the judge that Microsoft's real goal

for helping systems work together was to grab a share of the market for server

software from rivals such as Sun Microsystems Inc.

Microsoft's case got more backing earlier on Monday from an executive from

Qwest Communications International, who told the court that the software giant

would not be able to thwart emerging competition in the Internet services

business using its monopoly power.

Qwest vice president Gregg Sutherland disputed earlier testimony from a

representative of SBC Communications Inc. that without the strict antitrust

sanctions, Microsoft could crush SBC's planned Internet-based messaging service.

"It couldn't happen," Sutherland told the judge. "That would

be a nonsensical thing for any (competitor) to do." But under questioning

from the states' lawyer, Sutherland acknowledged that he knew little about

Microsoft's past anti-competitive conduct and had no experience with the kind of

Web-based services at issue in the case.

Qwest versus SBC



SBC engineer Larry Pearson, leader of a team at the No. 2 regional telephone
company that is developing SBC's Unified Messaging Service (UMS), told

Kollar-Kotelly Microsoft was well-placed to crush the product, scheduled for

initial deployment later this year.

Sutherland said any company that wants to compete in the telecommunications

business must make its technologies work seamlessly with other companies'

services. "A communications product or service that fails to meet this

expectation of ubiquitous connectivity would have little or no prospect of

commercial viability," Sutherland said.

Under questioning from states' attorney John Schmidtlein, however, Sutherland

conceded he had no direct experience with Web-based messaging and was only a

part of a small group at Qwest that is studying the possibility of getting into

the business of Web-based messaging.

He also admitted that the group was formed less than a month ago -- nearly

two months after Microsoft named him as a witness in the antitrust case.