Microsoft Big Guns Fire Away http://web.archive.org/web/20011128134551/www.wired.com/news/...

Microsoft Big Guns Fire Away

by Arik Hesseldahl

7:20 p.m. Sep. 8, 1998 PDT

Microsoft fired another legal salvo Tuesday in its battle against antitrust regulators, asking a federal judge to dismiss what it called a "fatally flawed" suit
against the company by the US Department of Justice and 20 states.

"The central facts of the case and the overwhelming body of law support Microsoft's position," said William Neukom, Microsoft senior vice president for law
and corporate affairs, in the motion filed in US District Court in Washington, DC.

Microsoft said that information in a letter from Netscape to Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein, in which Netscape says that Internet Explorer and
Windows 98 are inseparable, pokes holes in the government's case. In that letter to Klein, dated 6 March 1998, Netscape's counsel told the Department of
Justice:

"We are totally unable to provide examples of files that can or cannot be deleted from Windows 98 since, as we discussed this week, it is our
understanding that it simply is not possible to delete any portion of Internet Explorer, or of browsing functionality, from Windows 98 as presently
configured without severely interfering with the operating system."

Microsoft further argued that the inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows "produces clear technological benefits for consumers" and that the software
giant has not "foreclosed Netscape's or any other competitor's ability to distribute its Web browsing software."

These facts, Microsoft said, mean that the government will not be able to prove its central claim that Microsoft improperly exploited its market dominance
in an effort to snuff out its rivals in the area of Internet browser software.

"Nothing shown at trial can change the fact that customers benefit from Microsoft's efforts to make Windows work well with the Internet," Neukom said in
the motion. "And nothing shown at trial can change the fact that Netscape has been enormously successful at distributing its Web browsing software to
consumers. These facts undercut all of the government's claims."

Netscape was unavailable for comment.

The government's original complaint against Microsoft was aimed at an alleged attempt by the company to control the browser market, and make browser
licensing arrangements with PC manufacturers that the government says are illegal.

The breadth of the case expanded last week as the Justice Department announced new allegations that Microsoft employed predatory practices to protect
its technology by pressuring competitors like Apple Computer, Intel, and RealNetworks to refrain from developing multimedia software for the Internet
that would compete with Microsoft's.

The new allegations, Microsoft said, are an attempt by the government "to distract the court from the fatal defects in their claims by slinging as much mud
as they can at the defendant and by giving prominence to numerous irrelevant facts in a desperate attempt to cloud the issues."

"Microsoft's reply is nothing new," said an official of the US Justice Department. "We look forward to proving at the upcoming trial that Microsoft engaged in
a series of anti-competitive acts to maintain its operating system monopoly and to extend that monopoly to Internet browsers."

US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson will hear oral arguments on the motion on Friday. The trial is set to begin 23 September.

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