Like a burr that never lets go, the US government tried again Monday to prove a key claim in its antitrust suit: that Microsoft's Windows and Internet Explorer are separate applications that were illegally tied together.
A Princeton University computer scientist showed a videotape of a 600-line program that he claimed yanks IE from Windows 98.
"The program removes all the methods by which the user can access the Web," assistant professor Edward Felten said during testimony in the antitrust trial.
Government attorneys hope to convince US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that by incorporating a Web browser into Windows, Microsoft violated antitrust laws restricting monopolists from combining separate products. Microsoft denies the allegation and says high-tech firms should be able to design products without government regulation.
"Customers and consumers do want to be able to make a choice of browser separately from the operating system," US Justice Department attorney David Boies said on the steps of the courthouse during a break in the trial.
Making the task more difficult for Boies is the appeals-court ruling in June that said Microsoft was free to design software as it saw fit as long as the end result benefits consumers and cannot be easily duplicated by the public.
Monday's proceedings seemed to show that Boies and the other Justice Department lawyers are charting a course around that decision.
They could attempt to convince Jackson that the appeals-court ruling violates established Supreme Court guidelines, said William Kovacic, a visiting professor at George Washington University's law school who specializes in antitrust issues.
Otherwise, it'll be difficult for the government to win on that point, Kovacic said. "Microsoft doesn't have to put a whole lot on the other side of the scale to tip it."
On Monday, the trial returned to familiar -- though contested -- philosophical terrain: What is an operating system? What is a Web browser?
Government witnesses have claimed that only the key functions of Windows should be considered part of the operating system, a definition that excludes IE.
