By Jon Collins in Washington
Late last week, the Department of Justice released testimony from its first technical expert in its antitrust case against Microsoft. Glenn Weadock, a software author and president of Independent Software, a one man consultancy, was cross-examined by the Microsoft lawyers yesterday. Microsoft’s defense set about Weadock’s written testimony that centered round a report he was commissioned to deliver to the Department of Justice as part of the government’s case. In it, he stressed that some of America’s largest companies, including Boeing, Citicorp and Federal Express complained that Microsoft’s strategy of integrating Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system was a costly inconvenience with few benefits. He also said that some companies would move over to Internet Explorer because of a desire to upgrade their Windows operating system to Windows 98 and the integrated nature of the two pieces of software in the latest version. Weadock maintained that many companies believe that an upgrade to Windows 98 necessitates the use of Internet Explorer, because not to do so would mean having the overhead of supporting two browsers across its installed PC base. While Weadock worked to answer every question fully, the Microsoft defense worked diligently through the written testimony to discredit first the witness, then his impartiality, and then the impartiality of the companies used in the report. Microsoft portrayed Weadock as lacking enough technical knowledge to comment on the construction of the Microsoft software. Leaving no stone unturned, the defense even cited Weadock’s small number of computer modules on his degree course, although he has been working in the industry for 18 years. Weadock was also asked to confirm that, of the 17 major companies quoted in his resume, only the DoJ remained a client. Attention was also drawn to his $100 an hour fee for the DoJ work. Weadock’s report detailed the opinions of the 18 companies surveyed, which Microsoft’s counsel pressed, were biased toward the DoJ’s case. Microsoft maintained that 13 of the 18 companies had been suggested by Netscape, and five by the DoJ. Weadock responded that the corporate accounts made up just one of ten areas of consideration he had used in compiling the report. As the testimony continued, Microsoft’s counsel moved to show that, although the integrated nature of IE with Windows 98 means that much of the code remains if IE is replaced by a rival browser, Microsoft had made it possible to remove the user access to the program. Weadock maintained that although this was possible, the remaining memory required by IE was, in many cases still too much of an overhead. Weadock’s insistence that Microsoft did not have to develop IE and Win 98 in the fashion that it did was later dismissed by a Microsoft spokesperson outside the courthouse. He maintained that the witness showed how the government is trying to get involved in product design. He said that the cross- examination, which will continue tomorrow, had showed that the government had flip-flopped its allegations in the case. He said that it had begun its case stating that windows and Internet Explorer were completely separate products, but that Weadock, the government’s own witness, had maintained it was a fully integrated coupling.
