Microsoft Exec Denies Quid Pro Quo in Promoting Browser

Microsoft Corp. executive Cameron Myhrvold engaged in a verbal wrestling match with a government lawyer at the company’s antitrust trial Tuesday, denying his firm competed unfairly against Netscape Communications Corp.

The government also raised questions about a new videotaped demonstration offered by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. Last week, the company redid a video demonstration, after the judge criticized flaws and inaccuracies in the original.

Myhrvold, a Microsoft vice president, said his unit provided the company’s Internet Explorer Web browser to firms that offer Internet service as a means of promoting competition with Netscape.

But David Boies, an attorney for the government, charged that Microsoft required Internet service providers who got favored treatment on the Windows desktop to make sure that 85% of Internet browsers they distributed to customers were made by Microsoft, not Netscape.

Myhrvold shot back: “That’s absolutely wrong.”

Then Boies entered into evidence a May 2, 1996, e-mail in which Myhrvold said that one potential Internet provider must commit that “85% of the browsers they ship to their customers will be IE,” that is, Internet Explorer.

Confronted with that, Myhrvold said, “only one contract was signed at the time of this e-mail.”

Boies also raised questions about a videotaped demonstration shown by Myhrvold. In one section of the demonstration, an installation from the Internet seems to be going slowly. In another, it goes more quickly.

Boies asked if the same modem speeds were used in both sections, or if the slower test was conducted with a modem that ran 28,800 bits per second and the quicker one with a modem that ran at a faster speed.

“I don’t know,” Myhrvold replied. Later, a Microsoft official said he had checked and the faster test had used a modem running at 33,600 bits per second.

The Justice Department and 19 states allege that Microsoft used monopoly power to compete illegally against Netscape in the market for browsers used to surf the World Wide Web.