Economist Frederick Warren-Boulton’s five day testimony ended somewhat abruptly on Tuesday with Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson virtually ordered Microsoft attorney Michael Lacovara to conclude proceedings by 5pm. Warren Boulton’s main cross-examination by Lacovara had been concluded early Tuesday, but was followed by a series of redirect questions from Government lawyers which introduced new market share figures. The Government justified the new material by saying it was work that had been done after the written testimony had been submitted. But Lacovara said he wanted more time to go through the new material, particularly data from AdKnowledge Inc, a web advertizing company that keeps a track of browser usage. The figures showed Netscape browser share plummeting while Internet Explorer market share soared. Lacovara warned the judge at 4pm that he still had a couple of hours of questioning over the figures to complete. But the judge then told Lacovara that he wanted him to finish within the hour. This examination has got to end,” he said. Much of the questioning of Warren-Boulton has concentrated on the methodology of counting market share, carried out in great detail, as the economist has attempted to show that the market share figures prove that Microsoft has a monopoly position in operating systems. Tuesday’s proceedings became bogged down in discussions over how web cacheing affects the counting of browser usage when browser polling is used, the method adopted by AdKnowledge. Lacovara has the right to bring Warren-Boulton back to the for further questioning at a later stage in the trial. The case is now likely to continue into February of next year, as the government alone still has four more witnesses, and Microsoft twelve.
