Government Attorney Slams Microsoft Economist For Apparent Inconsistencies

Microsoft

Murphy, an economist with the University of Chicago's Business School, was the second witness Microsoft called in its case against nine states and the District of Columbia, all of which are seeking tougher sanctions against the company for anticompetitive behavior.

Murphy said he believed his opinions were consistent with those findings gathered by the U.S. Court of Appeals during an earlier stage of the long-running trial. However, Kuney displayed for Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly several instances of apparent discrepancies between the appeals court findings and Murphy's own 120 pages of written testimony.

In one example, Murphy wrote that he saw "no discernible effect of anticompetitive contractual terms on distribution of Netscape Navigator through Internet access providers." The appeals court wrote in its conclusions that Microsoft's signing deals with Internet access providers (IAPs) to use Internet Explorer did, in fact, hamper adoption of Navigator.

A key claim in the earlier antitrust case is that Microsoft used its desktop monopoly and all the resources it generated to bury Netscape's browser with its own Internet Explorer. In fact, IE has long replaced Navigator as the dominant browser.

Also, there were other incidents where Murphy's expert opinion appeared to contradict the court of appeals findings. For example, Murphy contended in his testimony that Java was not a significant threat to Windows, even though the Court of Appeals found that it was, and by extension, Microsoft's agreement to conditions with the Justice Department acknowledged as much as well.

Kuney went through a list of each type of behavior found by the appeals court to be anticompetitive and asked Murphy if they were, in fact, harmful to consumers. In each instance, Murphy said no.

Murphy will resume additional testimony on Wednesday.