Microsoft Produces Data to Challenge U.S. Claim

Microsoft Corp. produced documents at its federal antitrust trial Thursday to challenge the Justice Department’s claim that it blocked two important distribution channels for Netscape Communications Corp.’s rival Internet browser.

Microsoft lawyer Michael Lacovara confronted witness Franklin Fisher, the government’s top economics expert, with papers prepared last fall stating that Navigator was loaded on 22% of retail computers and accounted for 24% of the browsers distributed by the top 20 Internet service providers.

The figures conflict with testimony in October by Netscape’s former president, James Barksdale, who said that Microsoft’s business tactics had virtually excluded Navigator’s distribution through computer makers and Internet service providers that connect consumers to the World Wide Web.

David Boies, the government’s chief trial lawyer, told reporters later that the figures produced in the document still show that Netscape was effectively prevented from distributing its product. “You don’t have to drive someone to zero to dominate a market,” Boies said.

Still, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said the documents, which were prepared in November in connection with America Online Inc.’s acquisition of Netscape, contained “very interesting information” that he hoped Boies would revisit when the trial resumes today.

In Connecticut, meanwhile, opening statements were made in a private antitrust suit against Microsoft. Bristol Technology Inc. accuses the software giant of illegally denying the small software company access to computer code it needed to create new products.