Here's his case against Microsoft to look for clues.
12:02 PM EST Tues., Sept. 21, 1999 A government attorney Tuesday morning intoned a litany of what he called Microsoft Corp. offenses against antitrust laws Tuesday morning before a packed courtroom.
David Boies, the lead attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in its quest to reign in Microsoft practices, focused particularly on a June 21, 1995 meeting at which, he said, Microsoft tried to divide the browser market with Netscape Communications Corp., pointing to notes by then-Netscape chief technology officer Marc Andreessen as proof. "Look at the documents," said Boies.
As has become his custom, Boies spoke fluidly, without notes, calling up documents at will to reinforce his points.
He highlighted e-mail messages from Microsoft senior vice president Jim Allchin that talk of the company's need to use Windows as a competitive advantage. "We must use Windows, it's the one thing they do not have," Allchin wrote. Boies said Microsoft was so intent on using its Windows monopoly that it was willing to hold back new technology from OEM partners, even if those partners-and by extension their customers-would suffer as a result.
In an e-mail message, Allchin wrote that the company should withold certain other technologies in Windows 98 so the company could get its Internet Explorer browser integrated with the operating system.
There was a market for a separate browser and an operating system, but Microsft not only integrated the browser into Windows but "welded it so that OEMs and customers couldn't change it," Boies said.
Before a crowd of spectators both and statues of famous lawgivers of the ages from Moses and Solomon to Hammarabi, Boies hammered home three points: That Microsoft monopolized the operating systems market and attempted to do the same with browser, both in defiance of Section two of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and that it practiced unreasonable constraint of trade, a violation of section one.
Toward the latter point, he said Microsoft entered into exclusive deals with Internet Service Providers to distribute and maintain its browser and to refrain from distributing Netscape Navigator.
"In the end this case should be about the real world, not creative legal arguments or creative economic arguments and what the real world demonstrates is shown by Microsoft's documents, what OEMs said and what their customers said," Boies noted.
Observers lined up on both sides of the issue. "It's a scary situation when lawyers are telling us what the real world is. It ignores what really happened in terms of 100 million plus browsers being distributed by Netscape," Jonathon Zuck, president of the pro-Microsoft Association for Competitive Technology.
Ken Wasch, president of Washington-based SIIA called Boies' closing "simply marvelous."
"It's clear Microsoft employed tactics not designed to improve its product but to kill competition," Wasch said.
But, William Kovacik, a professor of law at George Washington University said the government strategy is a gamble. They are relying so much on the June 21 meeting, the result could boil down to whether that meeting "had a single and unambiguous purpose, if there was a single unmistakable aim and purpose you might have a violation but it will be hard to prove that."
Microsoft will have its turn to present its key points later Tuesday afternoon.
I also found out that CBS OWNS VIACOM and MTV. And, he's National Enquirer's counsel and for some reason, he was involved in the Spike Lee case against TNN's Spike network arguing against Johnny Cochran for Spike Lee. So, I guess that means Boies was representing TNN/Spike TV.