Microsoft Says Justice Knew Of Internet Plans

The Microsoft Corp. said Monday that the Justice Department has known for more than three years of its plans to embed Internet browsing software in its Windows computer operating system.

The company said it inserted language into a 1995 consent decree with the government to authorize the very step that the government now alleges violates that two-year-old court order.

A “proviso was included in the consent decree at Microsoft’s insistence to retain Microsoft’s unfettered liberty,” the company said in a brief filed in U.S. District Court.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant said the department’s antitrust division was aware of these plans even before a court gave final approval to the 1995 court order which settled government challenges to provisions in Microsoft’s licenses of its products to computer makers.

In the 13-page brief for a status conference on the case, the company reiterated its position that adding an Internet browser to the operating system was the logical next step after adding the ability to get information from the computer’s hard-drive or from a read-only compact disc.

The government has objected to Microsoft’s requirement that personal computer manufacturers that install the Windows 95 operating system on their products also license and install its Internet browser, known as Internet Explorer.

The government argues the browser and the operating system are two separate products that should be sold separately. A week ago, it accused Microsoft of using the monopoly its Windows 95 software enjoys over computer operating systems to steal customers from rival Netscape’s popular Internet browser.

“The DOJ knew that Microsoft planned to include Internet-related technologies in Windows 95, including ‘browser’ functionality, at least by July 1994 when the DOJ and Microsoft were negotiating the consent decree,” the company continued.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson gave the company until Nov. 10 to file its formal response to the government’s bid to hold the company in contempt for its alleged violation of the 1995 court order. He said he would decide in early December on the next steps in the case, including a hearing.

The Windows operating system is used on more than 80 percent of the nation’s personal computers and an even higher percentage of new computers, usually installed at the factory. But rival Netscape markets the leading Internet browser, Navigator, which has 62 percent of that market.

Browsers enable computer owners to easily locate and retrieve information on the Internet.