The government also alleges that Microsoft has tried to co-opt Java because it feared it could eventually lessen computer users' reliance on Windows. Microsoft argues that despite Windows' huge market share, it does not have monopoly power because it does not have a lock on the business of operating systems. The company contends that any one of several new technologies, including Java, could topple Windows. The government's expert witnesses, however, have maintained that any displacement of Windows would take several years, if not longer, effectively giving the company a monopoly position in the fast-changing technology world. Microsoft maintains the contracts are commonplace business arrangements that still leave Netscape with myriad other ways to distribute millions of copies of its browser.
Antitrust specialists say the claim of exclusionary contracts is stronger than the other two.
Ultimately, the government hopes the electronic messages and its other evidence will demonstrate a pattern of anti-competitive behavior and disregard for antitrust laws that will elicit strong sanctions from the judge. For the government, however, a key piece of evidence in that regard may come from a decidedly low-tech document the handwritten notes of an Intel Corp. executive taken during a 1995 meeting with Gates. We haven't changed our business practices at all.