The government entered Microsoft's own dictionary into evidence at its antitrust trial Wednesday, to demonstrate that the software giant regarded its Web browser as separate from its Windows operating system.
The seemingly arcane point is a central one in the trial, because the Justice Department and 19 states allege that Microsoft competes unfairly in the market for Web browsers.
Microsoft and Netscape battled for years for the browsing market. Finally, Microsoft integrated its browser into Windows, so anyone who buys a PC with Windows also gets its Internet Explorer.
One of the inventors of the technology underlying the Internet, David Farber, testified Wednesday for the government that Microsoft had no legitimate justification for "welding" the two together.
In its defense, Microsoft said the browser no longer exists and browsing functions are part of operating systems.
Taking aim against that viewpoint, government lawyer Denise De Mory entered into evidence the Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, 3rd Edition, published in 1997. The dictionary defines the company's Internet Explorer as a "Web browser." A Web browser is defined in turn as a "client application," that is, a separate program.
"Is that your definition?" De Mory asked Farber, a computer-science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It repeats exactly what I've been saying -- it's an application," said Farber.
Antitrust law forbids any company from tying a monopoly product to another product. But a company can defend itself against a charge of "tying" by showing that it integrated two products to achieve efficiencies that benefit consumers. Microsoft has argued that consumers benefit from its integration.
Farber testified that he had not been given access to Microsoft's secret "source code," so he cannot know exactly how the program is constructed. But Farber said that computer code is "malleable."
"You don't have to know the details of construction to know that there are no efficiencies that can be achieved" by integrating the browser into the operating system, he said. "That gives the consumer less choice."
Farber completed his testimony a short time later. James Gosling, an executive at Sun Microsystems, was to resume his testimony in the afternoon.
