AfterDawn: News

RealNetworks' vice president David Richards testified in written form against Microsoft in Microsoft vs Nine States case where group of U.S. States are seeking to restrict Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour in market place.

Richards testified that Microsoft witheld important technical information about Windows which caused Real's products to be more unstable under Windows than Microsoft's own Windows Media Player. He also said that as late as in August 2001, Microsoft's executives considered RealNetworks as a "threat" to Microsoft's monopoly.



Microsoft also hit back during the cross-examination pointing out that Real's RealPlayer is still the dominant multimedia player in Windows platform. Judge also dismissed parts of Richards' testimony stating those parts as "classic hearsay". One part of testimony which was rejected was an email from AOL TimeWarner's executive Barry Schuler where he said to RealNetworks' executives that "Microsoft wants to kill you guys so badly, it is ugly".

"I do not think there is any question that Microsoft has sought, and continues to seek, to restrict the distribution, promotion, use and interpretability of RealNetworks," Richards wrote.

The states demand Microsoft to start shipping modular version of its Windows operating system, which would allow each individual hardware vendor to tailor the components they want to include in pre-installed operating systems they sell bundled with their hardware. Microsoft obviously opposes this.

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 21 Mar 2002 0:39