WASHINGTON -- Microsoft says it feels confident enough about its defense against stricter antitrust penalties that it has cut the number of its remaining witnesses by half.
Microsoft originally planned to call 28 witnesses in its defense during the penalty hearing. The nine states seeking antitrust penalties called 16 witnesses.
The company removed eight witnesses from its list "after reviewing the progress we made so far in our case as well as assessing the states' witnesses and what we believe are shortcomings in the states' case," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said Monday.
The company only has eight witnesses left, including Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. Desler said Microsoft may reduce that number further as the case continues.
Microsoft also plans to show video from an interview with California's assistant attorney general, Tom Greene, who summarized the states' proposals.
The move makes it possible that the hearings, which began in mid-March, could conclude next week. The states may still call extra witnesses to rebut Microsoft assertions, however.
Four of the eight witnesses Microsoft decided to cut are company employees.
One of them was Richard Fade, a vice president who handles Microsoft's relationships with computer makers. During his interview with lawyers for the states, Fade admitted that computer makers felt that new contracts drawn up after the federal government and nine other states settled their antitrust case against Microsoft last year for lesser penalties were still unfair.
Fade's omission from the witness list means that his testimony won't be considered by the judge.
Executives from retailer Best Buy and cable company Charter Communications were also dropped from Microsoft's witness list.
Much of the testimony from Microsoft witnesses, especially that of Microsoft executives, has repeated last week's testimony from company chairman Bill Gates.
Several small software developers have testified as well, but their credibility came into question when they said they had little knowledge about the case, and had learned about the proposed penalties only from Microsoft officials.
The states want to let computer manufacturers remove Internet Explorer and other features of Windows and substitute competing software.
Other provisions would require Microsoft to disclose technical information to software and hardware developers, and make the company license its Office business software for use on competing operating systems.
The original judge in the antitrust case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ordered Microsoft broken into two companies after concluding that it illegally stifled competitors. An appeals court upheld many of the violations but reversed the breakup order and appointed U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to determine new punishment.
States' lawyer Laurie Fulton said Monday that Microsoft's efforts to ensure that its products work with rival systems are designed to encourage people to switch to Microsoft's offerings.
"If our product is better, we want people to migrate to it," said Microsoft executive Robert Short.
In his testimony, Short reiterated Microsoft's position that the company works hard to help different systems work with Microsoft products. But if the states were able to force Microsoft to disclose more information, Short said, competitors would be able to clone Windows.
Short is due to finish his testimony Tuesday.
