The second week of the Microsoft antitrust trial saw Netscape Communications Corp CEO Jim Barksdale back on the stand and under cross examination from lead defense attorney John Warden, who was still following Barksdale’s pre-trial written testimony. Warden concentrated on attempting to prove that Microsoft won contracts through technological superiority, and that Netscape’s profile was the result of a poor management and weaker software development. Warden used Microsoft’s Corp’s Intuit Inc deal as example of this. He claimed that Intuit had chosen to use IE as its embedded browser in Quicken in August 1997 because it was compenentized, something that Barksdale admitted was only available now on Netscape Communicator in beta. Warden produced a memo that contained a list of requirements from Intuit’s Erik Torres, with ‘drop dead requirements’ already covered by Microsoft’s browser already flagged up. Warden charged that Netscape lost the Intuit deal because it didn’t deliver – a claim Barksdale refuted. He said that he didn’t really believe that the lack of a compontentized browser was the primary reason Netscape didn’t get the business. Barksdale also said that Intuit’s CEO Bill Campbell had told him that there were things you guys didn’t know about.
