Microsoft lawyer defends Microsoft remedy proposal

By James Niccolai
IDG News Service, 05/11/00

Microsoft's lead counsel said the company has offered to make "very considerable concessions" to resolve its antitrust case with the U.S. government. He argued that alternative remedies proposed by the Department of Justice would have devastating consequences for consumers and the software industry.

The software giant Wednesday issued its proposed remedies in the antitrust case. The remedies include restrictions on the way that Microsoft can use software licensing agreements with PC manufacturers as a way of promoting the use of its applications and operating systems.

Microsoft's offer amounts to "an enormously broad amount of flexibility for [PC manufacturers] and a very considerable concession by Microsoft," says Bill Neukom, Microsoft's executive vice president for law and corporate affairs.

"We have filed our own proposed final judgement and believe it addresses the court's conclusions of law and provides full relief for each violation found by the court," Neukom says.

The government's proposal, on the other hand, goes beyond anything that is reasonably applicable under the Sherman Act antitrust laws, Neukom says. In particular, the government's requirement that Microsoft make public key elements of its Windows operating system source code would be particularly damaging.

"In practical terms, IBM and Sun would receive billions of dollars worth of Microsoft's energy," Neukom says. "We'd be effectively competing with ourselves, against our own invented intellectual property."

Microsoft also proposed that the remedy portion of the trial be extended, and offered three options for when oral arguments should begin. The options vary according to the severity of the remedies that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson elects to consider, Neukom says.

"The more extreme the remedy, the more extensive the procedure, and the larger the amount of time that Microsoft deserves to defend itself," Neukom says.

If the court decides to consider both of the government's remedy proposals, for example - to break up Microsoft and to force the company to make public some of its intellectual property - Microsoft requests that the start of oral arguments be delayed until Dec. 4, Neukom says.

The Microsoft counsel wouldn't say how long such a hearing might last, but implied that it would be a lengthy and drawn out process. The trial would need to look at all the possible consequences of breaking Microsoft up - the impact on the software giant itself, on consumers, on the software industry as a whole and on the economy, Neukom says.

"You have a very large universe of information that requires business analysis," he says.

Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., can be reached at 425-882-8080 or www.microsoft.com/.