Microsoft Antitrust Trial
The first live witness testified on Thursday in the Microsoft antitrust trial in Iowa. According to the DesMoines Register:
Ronald Alepin, a California-based computer consultant, was the first live witness the 12-person jury has heard since the trial began in late November. He testified Thursday that competitors have described Microsoft’s strategy as one of “embrace, extend and extinguish,” meaning the company had embraced innovations from other software makers, then extended the technology by adding its own proprietary modifications, resulting in the extinction of competition. While competitors use the three-word phrase to describe Microsoft, Alepin said he never saw the word “extinguish” as part of the phrase in any “documents authored by Microsoft.” Alepin also testified another Microsoft tactic was to bundle software by packaging it together in a way that made no technological sense, except to keep competitors from adding their own innovations to it.
But this is what I found interesting (emphasis added):
Until now, the case has consisted of jury selection, 11 days of opening statements and several days of videotape depositions, including 10 hours of Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ 1998 testimony in the federal antitrust case.
11 days of opening statements!? Wow – that is a long opening statement. I know this is a complex and complicated case but if you need several days for your opening statement, I think you should figure out how to describe your case/defense more efficiently.
Technorati Tags: antitrust, Microsoft, opening statements
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