– Next week will probably see the fourth and fifth witnesses called by the government take the stand: Glenn Weadock, president of Independent Software and IBM Corp’s director of network computer services, John Soyring. Lead government attorney David Boies indicated to Judge Jackson that their testimony and cross- examination would probably occupy all four days. Both sides have a dozen witnesses each to call.
– Pinning down the exact source at Microsoft of the cut off Netscape’s air supply comment occupied a lot of the court’s time yesterday morning. Microsoft’s lawyer Steve Holley ate up the clock implying that the witness, Intel’s Steve McGeady was lying about being in a 1995 meeting where the words were apparently uttered by Paul Maritz. Holley suggested that McGeady had lifted the comment from a recent book, ‘The Difference between God and Larry Ellison.’ No, said McGeady, he hadn’t read the book and I didn’t learn that from Larry. I haven’t learned much from Larry, he added with relish. Not content with that book, Holley produced another one, this time called ‘Inside Intel’ from where McGeady allegedly lifted his story about Bill Gates ad Andy Grove getting into a shouting match over dinner at Grove’s house on July 3 1995. The book – and McGeady’s testimony – alludes to Gates becoming so animated that the caterers wondered whether or not they should leave the room. Not so, said McGeady again, adding that he heard the story from his boss Ron Whittier, who heard it direct from Grove.
– Holley portrayed McGeady as colluding with Netscape, so much so that he tried to get an invite onto Netscape co-founder and chairman Jim Clark’s much-vaunted $50m yacht, the Hyperion – any sailor would like the chance, argued McGeady. But McGeady suggested the visit should wait until after his time at the trial was over, as he was acutely aware of how bad it would look if he was socializing with Microsoft’s sworn enemy. While Microsoft and DoJ lawyers were at Netscape this past July interviewing Marc Andreessen, Jim Barksdale, and others, Clark emailed McGeady asking him if he could recall the air supply quote, and if so, would he be willing to testify if the DoJ asked him. McGeady told Clark he would be willing but couldn’t be seen to volunteer to testify as that would piss off Intel’s lawyers, as he put it.
– As part of his tactic of picking holes in his credibility as a witness, Microsoft lawyer Steven Holley produced some evidence of Steve McGeady’s dressing down he got at Intel when his Internet Architecture Lab was broken up and redistributed through the company in September 1995, after pressure from Microsoft, as McGeady alleges. In a late August 1995 meeting, McGeady’s boss Ron Whittier told him about the reorganization plan., saying it was a response to IAL having fucked up. After telling the court that such language is more common than you might expect, McGeady said he thought Whittier developed that view because of the decision to develop the NSP multimedia software only for Windows 3.1 and for generally developing a frosty relationship with Microsoft. McGeady went on secondment to MIT shortly after, but continued to work almost full-time for Frank Gill, who had taken over as McGeady’s boss. McGeady said Intel has a disagree and commit policy, which he followed as he thought the reorganization was a bad idea and said so, but then committed himself fully to Intel’s new direction.
– Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson started to tire of Holley’s series of questions about McGeady’s career and at one point asked him how long he was going to take. About one hour and forty-five minutes, your honor, replied Holley, to which Jackson muttered, hmm, let me tell you a story some time, which most observers took to mean that if Holley went on too long the judge might start viewing it as detrimental to his case. Later, when Holley revealed a McGeady email to Netscape’s Jim Clark in which he referred to Andy Mad Dog Grove, Judge Jackson asked Holley, what is the point of this? Are
you just trying to embarrass him? No, relied Holley, but that might be the consequence of it, but McGeady didn’t seem too bothered by that prospect.
