States' slip up gives Microsoft leverage
C|Net | at | by Mike
Microsoft's decision to withdraw Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and other witnesses from testifying in the ongoing antitrust trial may be part of a strategy to exploit a potentially devastating mistake made by the litigating states' attorneys. The software giant appears to be using the error to limit the amount of new evidence the states can introduce in the nearly 4-year-old case, legal experts say. The states could have used the testimony of at least three witnesses--Ballmer, Brock and Richard Fade, the Microsoft executive in charge of relations with OEMs--to, among other things, attack the legitimacy of a separate settlement the company made with the Justice Department and nine of 18 states. The states now have little recourse, after earlier failing to get pretrial depositions introduced into evidence.