The Microsoft trial plodded along without me earlier this week as Microsoft
CEO Bill Gates took the virtual stand Monday morning, when highlights from
his videotaped testimony were shown in court. The snippets were a prelude
to Intel exec Steven McGeady, who took the stand for the DOJ. McGeady
says that Microsoft forced Intel out of the multimedia software market
while Gates said in his testimony that "Intel was wasting its money writing
low-quality software that created a negative experience for users."
In other words, it's another week of "he said/she said."
McGeady, who led Intel's software development efforts, says Microsoft did
everything it could to stop the company from releasing its software, up to
and including threatening to not support Intel's MMX capabilities. Intel
was using MMX as a major selling point of its processors at the time.
Microsoft, however, says that McGeady has "an axe to grind" since it was
his pet project that was ultimately cancelled.
"It was clear to us that if [the new MMX] chip did not run Windows, it
would be useless in the marketplace," McGeady said, noting that Microsoft
said it would turn to Intel competitors AMD and Cyrix instead. "The threat
was both credible and terrifying."
Gates admitted that he suggested Intel drop out of the software market, but
that it was because Intel's software was behind the times. The were
preparing to release their software only for Windows 3.1, right before the
launch of Windows 95.
"When we saw Intel doing the low-quality work that was creating
incompatibilities in Windows that served absolutely no Intel goal, we
suggested to Intel that that should change," Gates said. "And it became
frustrating to us because it was a long period of time where they kept
doing work that we thought was actually negative."
On Tuesday, more of Gates' deposition was shown, and the government
presented evidence showing that Microsoft had been watching McGeady for
some time.
"Steve McGeady remains an issue for us. He is a champion of Java, and a
believer that the day of bloatware is over," wrote Microsoft VP Paul Maritz
in an email to Gates. "He has more IQ than most [people at Intel].