Microsoft presented its 10th witness yesterday - Richard Ulmer a
vice-president of Unisys - who was immediately questioned by the
states' attorney over his company's marketing agreements, which
include assisting in public relations activities.
Unisys is producing an Intel-based enterprise-class server, the
ES7000. Microsoft is interested in using the server to boost
business in the large server enterprise area.
Ulmer gave evidence about the harm that some of the remedies sought
by the nine nonsettling states would have on Microsoft.
In particular, he warned in his written testimony that requiring
the disclosure of application programming interfaces (API) would
increase Microsoft's development costs and threaten the stability
of the server operating system - affecting both Unisys and
Microsoft. The process of exposing an API increases complexity for
the user and reduces system performance and scalability, he said.
In court, Ulmer acknowledged that Unisys had a preferred partner
agreement with Microsoft and had a commitment to endorse the
company.
Earlier yesterday, Microsoft sent the vice-president of its Windows
division to reinforce and add detail to the testimony of its
chairman, Bill Gates, who finished three days of testimony
yesterday.
But while the testimony of Christopher Jones, vice-president of the
Windows client team, might have helped Microsoft underscore the
points raised by Gates, it also gave the nonsettling states new
opportunities to punch holes in it.
"One danger is that other witnesses contradict his testimony or
don't corroborate it," said Dana Hayter, a former US Department of
Justice antitrust attorney now at the law firm Howard Rice in San
Francisco.
The states' attorney, Kevin Hodge, attempted show through his
questioning that Microsoft had the flexibility to change the "look
and feel" of the Windows desktop for business reasons and not for
technical reasons. Microsoft has asserted that it is important to
maintain a consistent Windows desktop, and it warned that the
states' remedies would create end-user confusion.
Windows XP, for instance, is shipped to PC makers icon-free, which
was the result of extensive usability testing with consumers that
included videotaping them using their PCs, Jones said. He added
that Microsoft found from this testing that consumers would "spend
all this time wandering around" the desktop looking for icons. The
change made it easier for end users to operate the PC, he said.
But under its agreement with PC makers, if PCs are shipped with
icons on the desktop, Microsoft icons have to be added.
If there are any icons, asked Hodges, "you want more icons?"
Jones defended that agreement and said it gives end users access to
new capabilities of Windows. But Jones also acknowledged that
desktop space is valuable real estate.
An XP feature probed by Jones was the desktop wizard cleanup
function that automatically queries end users 14 days after the PC
is first booted about whether they want to remove little-used icons
from the desktop.
Hodges charged, through his question, that this feature "makes it
more difficult" for PC users to use applications that compete with
Windows.
Jones disagreed, and said two weeks is enough time and the wizard
was a clear enough service to allow end users to decide whether to
remove the icon or not.
One state remedy would require Microsoft to make Internet Explorer
open source, as well an application that could be stripped from the
system. But Jones insisted that the browser could not be separated
out because there is no distinction between the browser and Windows
operating system.
"Web browsing functionality is operating system functionality,"
said Jones.
Gates said the remedies sought by the nine states that have refused
to back the Bush administration settlement would create a wide
range of problems for his company that would lead to pulling
Windows from the market, loss of its intellectual property and
taking away the company's incentive to innovate.