WASHINGTON -- The US government said Tuesday that the Microsoft antitrust trial that began last October showed the software giant had engaged in a broad pattern of unlawful conduct aimed at thwarting competitors.
Microsoft, unsurprisingly, countered by saying the government had failed to prove those claims.
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The two sides restated their positions while submitting proposed findings of fact to the trial judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, on Tuesday.
The Justice Department, supported by the 19 states that joined it in the lawsuit, said the evidence demonstrated that "Microsoft has engaged in a broad pattern of unlawful conduct with the purpose and effect of thwarting emerging threats to its powerful and well-entrenched operating system monopoly."
It said the most prominent of these threats came from competing Internet browsers, particularly the browser produced by Netscape, because they had the potential to become a platform on which user applications would run, eroding Microsoft's monopoly.
Microsoft, not surprisingly, maintained in its submission that the government had failed to prove its case, namely that the company had the power to raise prices or exclude competitors in order to achieve a monopoly in the browser market.
Jackson is due to issue his findings of fact in late September or October after hearing additional written and oral arguments. After that will come conclusions of law and finally a determination of what remedies are needed to correct any violations Jackson finds.
The government filing drew on 76 days of courtroom testimony that concluded in June, as well as thousands of emails and pretrial testimony that included a three-day videotaped deposition by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
