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Judges grill Microsoft, government
By TIMES WIRES © St. Petersburg Times, published February 27, 2001 WASHINGTON -- Microsoft and government lawyers endured four hours of relentless grilling Monday by seven federal judges who found grave fault with the company's conduct but voiced doubts whether the world's largest software firm should be broken up. All seven appellate judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia often interrupted the flow of the oral arguments by advancing their own theories of what does and does not amounts to impermissible behavior in the fast-paced high-tech marketplace. Unless the parties settle the case out of court, the judges will make the next key ruling in the widely watched antitrust case, probably in June. Microsoft came in for its own share of sharp criticism for having denied that it stifled competitors and harmed consumers in gaining an all-powerful presence on computer desktops with its Windows operating system. In questioning Microsoft lawyer Richard Urowsky, Judge Douglas Ginsburg accused the company of using "saturation bombing" tactics against Netscape, its rival in the mid-1990s browser wars. Yet at least four of the judges were critical of the government's case on a related issue: whether the company bullied rivals to stomp out competition in the nascent Internet browser market. At one point, Chief Judge Harry Edwards berated Jeffrey Minear, a career government attorney, for portraying Microsoft as "a paranoid monopolist, someone who gets up in the middle of the night and shoots at any movement." Monday's arguments focused on the meat of the antitrust case. Today's continuation will examine whether the company should be broken up and whether comments U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson made to reporters criticizing the company demonstrate a bias. In June, Jackson ordered the company to be split in two. - Information from Cox News Service and Knight Ridder Newspapers was used in this report.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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