By Rachel Chalmers in Washington
Microsoft decided to integrate Internet Explorer with its Windows 98 operating system in order to increase its browser market share, it emerged from the antitrust trial on Tuesday. With just four rapid-fire questions, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson wrung that fact from Microsoft group VP Paul Maritz. It was an admission that Government counsel David Boies had tried to elicit for a day and a half. To be fair, Boies laid the groundwork. The bombshell came after Justice presented as evidence a Microsoft internal email in which executives discussed whether or not to split IE into two components: an HTML engine and a ‘shell’, which handled the GUI – that is, Active Desktop. Those in favor of the split believed Microsoft could sell the Active Desktop component. How do you split it up? asked Judge Jackson. It’s essentially a packaging issue, Maritz replied. But it could be done? the judge fired back at him. You just take it out of one file and put it in another? It’s not quite that simple, said Maritz. In his email, Maritz wrote that the split proposal was tempting, but that getting browser share to 50% remained a major goal. On the witness stand he explained to the judge that the pro-split party had wanted to make Windows 98 appear to be a more valuable upgrade, by charging for the Active Desktop that gave equivalent functionality to Windows 95. Maritz, however, opposed the plan. You wanted to ship [IE] as an integrated part of Windows 98, Jackson asked Maritz, who agreed. And the primary objective was to increase market share, asked the judge. Correct, said Maritz. To get more people to use your browser, said the judge. Correct, said Maritz. The effect on the peanut gallery was electric. Maritz had just admitted that the decision to integrate Internet Explorer with Windows 98 was not made for technological reasons or to benefit the consumer, as Microsoft has tried to argue, nor even on financial grounds, since the Active Desktop could have generated a revenue stream that Microsoft chose to forego. On the contrary, according to Maritz, Microsoft made that decision purely in order to increase its share of the browser market. That gain was by definition Netscape’s loss, since Navigator was the only serious rival to IE. ComputerWire is not a lawyer, but giving commercially valuable software away in order to improve one’s market position at a competitor’s expense certainly looks like an antitrust violation to us. Later, on the courtroom steps, Boies was all smiles. The witness’s testimony clearly shows that Microsoft originally had planned to ship Internet Explorer separately from Windows, but that it ended up combining the two in order to increase market share, he said. This was very significant testimony. This witness is the man. He is their top man, he is their head of development. They’re going to have a hard time walking away from what he just said. Oh, really? This was Microsoft legal chief Bill Neukom’s take on Maritz’s gaffe: What Maritz testified was that Microsoft integrated IE into Windows 95 and later Windows 98 in order to benefit consumers.
