Microsoft Releases Depositions

Microsoft Corp. on Monday complied with an order from a federal district court judge and released the transcripts and video recordings of the depositions of two of its top executives in relation to the antitrust case between the software company and the Department of Justice.

The transcripts of the depositions for CEO Steve Ballmer and Jim Allchin, the Redmond, Wash., software makers group vice president for platforms, were made available on the companys legal news Web site at www.microsoft.com/presspass/legalnews, but do not include material that Microsoft believes is confidential.

The depositions from former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and Liberate Technologies CEO Mitchell Kertzman will also be made available, as will any possible future testimony from Sun Microsystems Inc. CEO Scott McNealy, who has not yet been deposed.

While it is unusual for the oral testimony given in depositions to be made available to the media and the broad public, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly recently ordered this following a motion to intervene by the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Cable News Network, Dow Jones and Company, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Co., The Washington Post and USA Today.

The depositions were held over the past few weeks in preparation for the remedy hearings that begin next week. Microsoft and the nine states and the District of Columbia, who are opposing the settlement between the software firm and the Department of Justice, will each get about 100 hours to present their witnesses, a process that could take weeks.