COURT NOTES: Continuing their preparations for the antitrust trial to restart on June 1st, Microsoft lawyers interviewed America Online CEO Steve Case last week in a Washington DC hotel room. Case, who is expected to be the trial's last witness, reportedly told Microsoft little new information regarding AOL or its merger with Netscape. Among his statements, Case said that his company did notify the Department of Justice about "sensitive discussions," but said the exact purpose of the talks wasn't mentioned because they were worried about press leaks. He added that government attorneys were "quite surprised" when they heard that the discussions were about a merger instead of AOL plans to use the Netscape browser.
Speaking on behalf of the government, lead DOJ attorney David Boies pointed out later that it would have been in the government's best interest to have known more about the merger discussions as they took place, since that could have enabled them to handle the issue as it occurred instead of leaving it until now. Boies called the questions about Netscape's merger a "side show" designed to "detract from the central issue."
Case also said that those merger talks weren't centered around the trial or Netscape's browser products, instead focusing on their Netcenter Web portal, highly trained employees, e-commerce software and valuable brand name. He maintained that AOL was never interested in the browser business and had no desire to compete with Microsoft in that area, but was willing to take the risk in order to acquire Netscape's other valuable assets.
Later that day a Microsoft attorney claimed to have obtained documents proving AOL was interested in the browser side of Netscape, but she was unable to produce the evidence for public inspection since they were sealed under an order by Judge Jackson.

At his third annual 'CEO Summit', Microsoft President Bill Gates outlined future plans to the chief officers of more than 130 large companies. The CEOs - including General Electric's Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, Ford Motor's Jac Nassar and Michael Eisner from Disney - sat through a 75 minute presentation dealing with future technology aimed at increasing corporate efficiency by making workers do more work faster. (beyond classifying all employees as 'temps' the way Microsoft does)
Gates began by apologizing for scheduling the summit on the day Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (which he called 'Phantom Force') premiered, then moved on to show videos poking fun of the Y2K crisis, 'Riverdance' and MSN competitor Amazon.com. He also took the opportunity to defend Microsoft's recent cable purchases (just innocently trying to sell more software) and spin the antitrust trial.
But the main presentation focused on one of Gates' new concepts, the Digital Dashboard, essentially a modified version of the Outlook e-mail/scheduling software that serves as a portal on the Windows desktop with scrolling information like stock quotes and traffic information. The 'dashboards' would be customizable across an entire company, allowing IT managers to add information to employees' screens at a moment's notice. Similar Digital Dashboards will also be made available on handheld PCs and cellular phones, helping to squeeze more money from already stressed workers by forcing them to work while on their lunch break or at home.
As the three-day summit continued, Gates trotted out television executive & domestication queen Martha Stewart, who said she would "love" to see a simplified version of the digital dashboard for home users. Stewart explained her presence at the summit by expressing a desire to learn more about about the Internet, but it could be payment for Gates appearing on her syndicated TV show several months ago. (He managed to smile while eating her food, and she managed to smile while promoting his crapware.)
Executives who managed to stay awake during most of the presentations were awarded later in the week by an invitation to eat dinner at the Gates' $60 million home. No word whether or not that meal was prepared by Martha Stewart.

According to a Zona Research study released last Tuesday, Internet Explorer has enjoyed a sharp upswing in corporate adoption in the past six months that has pushed the Microsoft browser past Netscape Navigator.
Since Zona started tracking browser usage in January 1996, enterprises with policies dictating browser usage have grown from 33 to 69 percent. The most significant reason for the shift seems to be new corporate policies mandating uniformity in desktop configurations.
In the study, Zona found that out of 308 companies, 59 percent use Explorer as their primary browser, while only 41 percent use Navigator. Back in October 1998 the numbers were different, Navigator led Explorer 60 to 40 percent.
In the study, Zona found that corporate policy dictates more than two-thirds of all the browsers in use. It seems that designating a primary browser at work is now a part of the IT strategy within the enterprise. Of the companies in the study with such a strategy, 62% had declared Explorer the standard browser, while 38% use Navigator. In 1996, only 33% of the companies had such a browser policy.

Unsatisfied with control over almost every cable company in Britain and the US, Microsoft and Bertelsmann AG are in discussions to make a joint bid on the cable unit of Germany's Deutsche Telekom. DT has been trying to sell a stake in its cable division for several months, and a Bertelsmann spokesman confirmed the reports, but representatives of Microsoft and Deutsche Telekom had no comment.
Trying to stop a subscriber hemorrhage, MSN UK's internet access will go free on June 8. MSN UK lost 25,000 subscribers so far this year, mostly due to the introduction of several no-fee ISPs in Britain last fall. AOL-UK has also taken a hit from the free services, forcing it to cut monthly rates.

_{Microsoft accused of dumping software
Linux draws Microsoft interest}