WASHINGTON -- Microsoft spent most of Monday's court session trying to prove that the integration of its Web browser into the Windows operating system provides important benefits to consumers.
The Justice Department and the 19 states that brought antitrust charges against Redmond feel otherwise, accusing Microsoft of integrating Internet Explorer into Windows 98 primarily to compete unfairly against a rival browser made by Netscape.
Antitrust experts say that no matter what the motivation might be, it is legal to integrate one product into another when the improvements provide benefits to consumers. That's what Microsoft set out to prove.
For a window onto the Microsoft antitrust trial, visit US v. Microsoft. - - - - - -
Soon after James Allchin, a senior vice president at Microsoft, was sworn in, a morning of videotaped demonstrations began. The videotapes showed, among other things, that other operating systems are sold with browsers.
One videotaped demonstration showed that the Be operating system had the same Web-like appearance, whether it was used to access files from a local computer or to surf the Web. A similar demonstration was made of the Caldera version of the Linux operating system.
Windows 98 also can be set to give consumers a consistent and easy-to-understand appearance, from browsing the Web to seeking files from within the computer itself, narrators for the Microsoft demonstrations said.
The demonstrations also showed how computer applications companies -- such as the makers of Surf Monkey, a browser designed for children -- built their products on software services provided through Internet Explorer.
"What we were able to show today was that Microsoft's decision to build browsing directly into the operating system provides major advantages for consumers and major advantages to developers, and those benefits are what the government is trying to say are somehow illegal," said Mark Murray, a spokesman for Microsoft, during the lunch break.
Murray said that if the government view prevailed, the benefits of integration would no longer be available.
Government lawyer David Boies agreed that many of the functions demonstrated by Microsoft provided advantages for consumers. But he said they did not depend on integrating the browser into the operating system.
"You don't need to weld the products together in order to get consumer benefits," Boies told reporters at the luncheon recess. "Welding them together only has the benefits of depriving customers of [the choice of which] browser to use."
Boies said that "the seamless browsing experience" Microsoft showed in the Caldera and Be OS products "were both provided with browsers that were removable."
A Microsoft official disagreed with Boies, who said the matter would be settled during his cross-examination of Allchin.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
