The Microsoft Trial: 1998-2001

In October 1997 the Justice Department filed a motion charging Microsoft with violating the consent decree by "tying" Internet Explorer, its own Internet browser software, into its popular operating system, Windows 95, thus forcing computer makers to choose its browser. Microsoft's response was that this was an "integrated product" permitted by the consent decree. Judge Jackson issued a preliminary injunction ordering Microsoft to separate Internet Explorer from Windows. At about the same time the Justice Department retained David Boies to lead a prosecution against Microsoft. Boies had an outstanding reputation as a lawyer and successful litigator; particularly relevant to this case was his experience in successfully representing IBM against government antitrust action in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early months of 1998, the Department of Justice engaged in protracted negotiations with Microsoft in an attempt to arrive at an out-of-court settlement, but Microsoft was intransigent, and when the talks collapsed, the Justice Department and 20 states filed suit under the Sherman Act on May 18. An additional factor in the decision to take the antitrust action was a brief filed by antitrust lawyers, who, working with representatives of leading companies in the various arms of the computer industry, had presented the Justice Department with a 200-page document outlining the damaging effects of Microsoft's anti-competitive practices.