Microsoft Corp pushed to have the government drop its antitrust lawsuit yesterday in response to the AOL-Netscape merger. The time has come for this case to come to an end said Microsoft lead attorney John Warden. But Microsoft will stop short of filing a motion to dismiss the suit until the government finishes presenting its case. Justice Department attorney David Boies, not surprisingly, argued the exact opposite. He styled the merger essentially an exit strategy for Netscape, and said the company had been forced out of the business despite an extraordinarily bright opportunity. The government case, he said is still very much alive. Court proceedings continued with the questioning of economist Frederick Warren-Boulton, who testified that Microsoft’s profit margins were an astonishing 38.5% of its sales.
