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Was Gates 'concerned?'
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November 16, 1998: 4:09 p.m. ET
Microsoft chairman evasive in questioning; trial enters week five
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Government lawyers Monday presented videotaped footage of Bill Gates, which featured the Microsoft Corp. chairman dodging questions and instigating frustrating and comical debates over semantics.
As has become their pattern, government lawyers prefaced a new witness' testimony with excerpts from Gates' 20-hour videotaped deposition.
Monday's Gates material centered on the company's plans for its Internet Explorer browser program, focusing particularly on a Jan. 5, 1996 e-mail directive from Gates to Microsoft executives calling enhanced "browser share" his "No. 1 mission."
However, in the excerpted testimony, Gates told head government attorney David Boies that "we didn't mean browser share, we meant browser usage."
When pressed, Gates said he did not remember writing the e-mail in question and was reluctant to speculate further on his meaning at the time.
Gates also repeatedly expressed his confusion over the definition of seemingly simple terms. At one point, he and Boies became involved in a debate regarding whether Gates was concerned about non-Microsoft browsers in January 1996.
"I don't know what you mean [by] 'concerned,' " Gates said.
"What is it about the word 'concerned' that you don't understand?" Boies asked.
"I'm not sure what you mean by it… is there a document where I use that term?"
"Is the term 'concerned' a term you are familiar with in the English language?" Boies asked.
"Yes."
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson often shook his head or grinned in apparent exasperation at Gates' refusal to answer certain questions. At one point, Gates and Boies wrangled over the term "non-Microsoft browser."
"You understand what is meant by non-Microsoft browsers, do you not, sir?" Boies asked.
"No," Gates replied.
"You don't?" Boies asked. "Is that what you're telling me? You don't understand what that means?"
"You'll have to be more specific," Gates responded.
"Do you understand what is meant by non-Microsoft browsers"
"In the right context, I'd understand that," Gates said.
Follow the browser
Microsoft's browser policy is central to the government's case, which claims that the software giant abused its preeminent position in the operating-systems market to take over the Internet browser market.
During the weeks of testimony, witnesses have accused the company of a wide array of other anticompetitive practices, but Monday's material indicates that the trial may be shifting back to the specifics of Microsoft's browser dealings.
After disclosing more Gates deposition excerpts, the government called Glenn Weadock, president of computer consulting firm Independent Software Inc., as its next witness.
In his pretrial written deposition, Weadock said Microsoft's practice of integrating or "bundling" Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system does not necessarily deliver benefits to the consumer.
"Many organizations wish to use browser products and have compelling reasons to standardize on a single such product, but want to select that product independently of any particular operating system," he said.
The government argues that this integration was intended to hurt Microsoft's competitors, particularly once-dominant browser maker Netscape Communications Corp.
Microsoft, on the other hand, claims that its browser is now an integral part of Windows and cannot be removed from it.
Weadock, president of computer consultant firm Independent Software Inc., disputed this claim.
"Many organizations… have sought, at some cost, to remove Internet Explorer from their PCs by either deleting the means of access to Internet Explorer or standardizing on the original version of Windows 95, which did not come with Internet Explorer at all," he said.
Microsoft lawyers began their cross-examination of Weadock Monday afternoon.
Microsoft shares (MSFT) fell 2 to 108 in late-day trading while Netscape (NSCP) gained 1-5/16 to 28-9/16. 
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