– During a recess before the beginning of Microsoft’s redirect at the antitrust trial in Washington yesterday afternoon, Microsoft Corp spokesperson Mark Murray was asked why the company recorded Windows sales on bits of paper and whether it had ever considered using Microsoft Money or Excel.
– When Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson asked Microsoft Corp key witness Richard Schmalensee to offer an example of another industry in which high profits are the result of capitalizing on intellectual property and copyright protection and not due to monopoly power, Schmalensee – perhaps rather unwisely – compared Windows to the movie Titanic. Schmalensee said that like Windows, Titanic is a valuable piece of IP, which is not possible to copy. Once it is made and sold, the studio has to make another, Microsoft chief counsel Bill Neukom later observed. Microsoft, Neukom claims, has to constantly reinvent its business and innovate just like movie studios.
– Reviewing the government’s cross-examination of its key witness MIT professor Richard Schmalensee. Microsoft Corp chief counsel Bill Neukom said he felt good about the last few days. He said the government had not shaken Schmalensee’s testimony one iota. He said the government had selected a few documents out of thousands in an attempt to undermine the testimony . It was not a comprehensive cross examination and therefore Schmalensee’s testimony stands intact.
The redirect in which Microsoft Corp gets a second chance to questions its key witness, MIT economics professor Richard Schmalensee, is expected to last all of Thursday and some of next Monday morning although this part, in which Microsoft will reveal some proprietary data, will be heard in a closed session of the court.
In addition to nine of its executives beginning with Paul Maritz that Microsoft Corp will call in its defense beginning next Monday, it will also call Rational Software Inc CEO Michael Devlin and Compaq Computer Corp’s John Rose. รก
