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Document Summary) At the Feb. 13 meeting, according to an account provided by Apple to the Justice Department, Microsoft executive Don Bradford delivered a message to Apple's chief technologist, Avi Tevanian. Mr. Bradford said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wanted Apple to keep its popular QuickTime multimedia software out of the Windows software market, antitrust investigators were told. In exchange, the investigators were told, Microsoft would help Apple in the smaller market for video-software tools. Apple declined the offer. But the Justice Department will offer several memos written by top Microsoft officials to Mr. Gates in the days preceding the meeting. In one, Mr. Gates's senior strategist, Paul Maritz, says the goal of the talks with Netscape's chief executive, Jim Barksdale, is to "move Netscape out of Win 95, avoid battling them in the next year. " After the meeting, another executive reported in an e-mail to Mr. Gates that the meeting's goal was to "establish Microsoft ownership of the Internet client platform in Windows. " A Microsoft official said the government is "deliberately misrepresenting" Mr. Gates's pretrial testimony. The company has a few smoking guns of its own, he also said. Among them are e-mails sent by top Netscape officials in the weeks after the same meeting detailing continuing contacts between the two companies, with no hint that Netscape had been threatened, as the government alleges. Microsoft also plans to cite strategic errors by Netscape -some recounted in vivid language by Netscape's own executives -to show that Netscape's problems arose from its own blunders, not Microsoft's competitive acts. Full Text (2145 words) Copyright Dow Jones & Company Inc Oct 5, 1998 In Silicon Valley, big deals often get done over the cinnamon-blueberry coffee cake at Hobee's, near Apple Computer Inc.'s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. But the cafe may also be remembered for a deal that didn't get done: what antitrust investigators allege was an illegal attempt by Microsoft Corp. to kill competition in an emerging technology. At the Feb. 13 meeting, according to an account provided by Apple to the Justice Department, Microsoft executive Don Bradford delivered a message to Apple's chief technologist, Avi Tevanian. Mr. Bradford said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wanted Apple to keep its popular QuickTime multimedia software out of the Windows software market, antitrust investigators were told. In exchange, the investigators were told, Microsoft would help Apple in the smaller market for video-software tools. Apple declined the offer. The Apple meeting and a separate, allegedly illegal attempt by Microsoft to persuade Netscape Communications Corp. to divide up the Internet software market are likely to be the most dramatic and hard-fought charges at the historic trial scheduled to begin next week. A review of previously undisclosed evidence, much of it still under court seal, offers an outline of each side's legal strategy and reveals some of the strongest evidence it will use against the other. Microsoft denounces the market-division charges as false, arguing that the government simply doesn't understand the software industry. Company officials say meetings between rivals are common and help ensure compatibility between competing products, to the benefit of consumers. "When the facts come out, people will see the government's claims as revisionist history," a Microsoft spokesman says. Through spokesmen, both Mr. Bradford of Microsoft and Mr. Tevanian of Apple declined to comment. 1