Microsoft-Bristol trial taking shape
Bristol Technology and the software giant, locked in a fight over Windows NT, are expected to send their top officers to testify at a trial slated for late spring.
Potential witnesses include Microsoft executives Jim Allchin and Paul Maritz, as well as Bristol co-founders Keith, Ken, and Jean Blackwell, according to the documents filed in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
According to a recent Microsoft filing, the company will not call its star economist as a witness at the trial, scheduled for June 1. Richard Schmalensee, dean of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified for Microsoft in an earlier hearing in the Bristol case.
Schmalensee also testified as Microsoft's lead witness recently in the antitrust trial brought by the Justice Department (DOJ) and 19 states. On at least two occasions, lead prosecutor David Boies pointed out inconsistencies between Schmalensee's testimony in the government trial and earlier statements, including claims the economist made at an October preliminary injunction hearing in the Bristol case. When Boies confronted Schmalensee with one of the seemingly conflicting statements, the economist replied: "What could I have been thinking?"
Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said Schmalensee's absence from the Bristol trial is unrelated to his testimony in the government antitrust proceedings. Schmalensee is likely to be called as a rebuttal witness when the government trial, now in a six-week recess, reconvenes, Cullinan noted, adding that the economist had been scheduled to testify in a separate antitrust trial brought by Caldera . That trial had been scheduled for June but was recently was postponed until January of next year.