First MS witness does the wet noodle impersonation

Microsoft should have thought twice about bringing its first witness--MITdean Richard Schmalensee--to the stand in its antitrust trial. In his firsttwo days, Schmalensee has been manhandled by both the government lawyersand the judge overseeing the case.

On Wednesday, Schmalensee identified Linux, Palm, and the BeOS as potential competitors to Windows. This brought chuckles and a pointed question fromJudge Thomas Penfield Jackson: Were the companies supplying either of theseoperating systems making any money?

"I would be stunned if they were making any serious money," Schmalensee replied.

Perhaps more damning for Schmalensee was the revelation that the man is afrequent flyer on the Microsoft defense circuit: He has appeared as a witness for Microsoft in the past and apparently custom-tailors his comments to the defense-du-jour. Government attorney David Boies said thatSchmalensee's testimony in a Bristol lawsuit against Microsoft directlycontradicts the testimony he is giving in this case.

Then on Thursday, Schmalensee was forced to admit that Microsoft has noeffective competitors in the OS market: The Macintosh, which once represented the only clear threat, has far too few applications to becompetitive anymore, for example. Schmalensee presented a list of possiblecompetitors including Apple Computer, Red Hat, Corel, Sun, Netscape, AOL,and Oracle, to which Boies asked which were actually threats today. Schmalensee responded that none were.

"The most serious threat is the one that we cannot identify," he said. "Aserious threat is that bright undergraduate with a great idea who will launch it in six months.