In nearly three hours of often rapid-fire exchanges with Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) attorney Steven Holley, McGeady reasserted his claim that it was Microsoft's pressure, not technical incompatibilities, that killed a multimedia technology known as Native Signal Processing.
Microsoft lawyers, in turn, tried to show that Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) produced an inferior product.
The opportunity to testify on yet another multimedia controversy came seemingly from nowhere.
After an extended lunch break, Holley asked McGeady a few basic questions about his earlier claims that Microsoft had bullied the world's largest maker of computer chips into dropping plans for NSP. NSP was a problem for Microsoft, McGeady said Monday, because it could compete with Microsoft's own software plans.
Was there any other instance in which Microsoft had bullied Intel into not releasing a product, Holley asked?
There was, McGeady replied.
MS feared NSP would hurt Win95 sales
In the early 1990s, Intel had plans for something called the Video Display Interface, a technology that would have run video far better than was then possible.
That, too, was a threat to Microsoft's dominance of multimedia, McGeady said. And as a result, "Microsoft called each and every one" of the video hardware makers who had expressed interest in Intel's technology and told them not to support, presumably on pain of exclusion from information they would need to make their devices work with Windows.
In tones almost preternaturally calm, the Internet technology specialist went on to explain that Microsoft feared NSP would improve older versions of Windows so much that computer manufacturers would use those older versions of Windows together with NSP rather than pay for the still-emerging Windows 95 operating system. "I think there was serious and heartfelt concern that (computer makers) would pick up NSP and ship it with Windows 3.11 and use that as an excuse not to ship Windows 95," McGeady told the court.
Competing video testimony 'PR spin'
The day continued with more unanswered allegations, even as Microsoft spokesmen had billed the day as an opportunity to land some blows of their own after a particularly damaging Monday. By the time Tuesday's session was over, McGeady had dodged almost every punch the software giant threw.
To make their case, Microsoft attorneys introduced videotaped testimony from McGeady's superior Ron Whittier. Whittier told Microsoft attorneys last August that Intel pulled NSP from its sales plans after it became apparent the technology would not work with Windows 95 as written. "We were looking out for our own best interest," Whittier said in his taped deposition. "Windows 95 required certain processor resources" that NSP could not deliver.
Microsoft had hoped to play that segment alone in the morning. But government lawyers objected to that attempt under rules that require both sides to sign off on all segments played in court. As a result, Microsoft had to play a section of the government's choosing just seconds later. In the second segment, Whittier seemed to support McGeady's contention that Microsoft pressured computer makers interested in NSP not to accept the technology. "They just made it clear through their (manufacturing) channels that they were not going to support the program," Whittier said.
Whittier's seemingly contradictory statements, McGeady said, could be explained in two words: "PR spin."
Was NSP a 'memory hog'?
Microsoft's Holley soon turned to Microsoft technical assessments that painted Intel as a producer of inferior software. The Sullivan & Cromwell partner turned to a June 20, 1995, paper that laid out Microsoft's objections to Intel's NSP project to Intel executives.
Jammed with technical details, the document took issue with NSP by claiming it lacked one ability or another, especially when used with the then-unreleased Windows 95. For every point raised, McGeady seemingly had an answer. In short, he said, the paper was meant to rationalize Microsoft's rejection of NSP, not justify it.
Microsoft officials had written NSP used too much of a computer's memory -- a half megabyte of random access memory, in fact. Didn't that make Intel's software "a memory hog?" Holley asked.
"I'm not sure of that," McGeady replied. "Microsoft wrote applications that took as much memory. They just didn't want this application using that memory."
One scheduler too many?
Holley zeroed in on NSP's "scheduler," in essence an electronic traffic cop that keeps the many tasks a computer must perform running in harmony so things get done when they are supposed to. Though most computers have only one scheduler included with their operating systems, NSP would have added a second scheduler -- one "with unknown and untested implications," Microsoft executives wrote.
"Windows itself has a task scheduler, is that not true?" Holley asked.
"That's correct," McGeady said.
So didn't that mean the schedulers were redundant? Holley asked. No, McGeady said, since Intel's scheduler coordinated audio, video and other tasks that weren't handled by Windows in the same way.
"But they were both schedulers, weren't they?" Holley asked.
"We're using a term of art in computer science I'm not sure you understand," McGeady said.
But wasn't that scheduler "unknown and untested?" Holley asked.
"They were known and tested by us," the Intel executive said simply.
McGeady quizzed on upgrade issues
Holley tried to pin McGeady down on future versions of Windows. According to the document, the Intel software wouldn't work with its NT operating system. Didn't that mean problems when users upgraded their computers?
No, McGeady said. Since NT couldn't make sense of NSP as it was written, it would simply ignore the computer code.
With all the objections Microsoft had raised just prior to the launch of Windows 95, Holley asked, why hadn't Intel approached Microsoft earlier so their differences could be worked out?
"We had a fear if we revealed what we were doing too early, Microsoft would do what it did anyway, which was badmouth the project to (computer makers). The fear that kept us from prematurely revealing this project was the fear that was ultimately realized, the fear that Microsoft would stomp it out of existence," he said.
Holley turned to internal Intel documents that showed company executives had second thoughts about an earlier decision to design NSP for Windows 3.1 when Windows 95 was only months from release. Holley suggested Intel's judgment to wait for Window 95 was a clear mistake. McGeady said those second thoughts were hardly so important; the company had a test version of NSP for Windows 95 ready for its final touches when and if Windows 95 took off.
Microsft revisits MMX issue
In direct testimony Monday, McGeady had told government attorneys Microsoft threatened to withhold support for MMX, a later multimedia technology that now forms part of all of Intel's most popular computer chips. Holley returned to that testimony Tuesday, challenging McGeady to say what Microsoft would have to do to its operating system for MMX to work properly with Windows. McGeady said he wasn't sure, but he thought there was something in the way Windows kept track of which computer documents went with what programs that would have to be changed.
So did that mean he couldn't name anything? McGeady said he was sure the Microsoft Windows compiler, which changes the code programmers write into instructions computers can read, had to be changed or Windows could never use MMX.
"A compiler is not an operating system, is it Mr. McGeady?" Holley asked.
"It's part of the operating system environment," McGeady replied.
McGeady still has 'an ax to grind'
Microsoft spokesmen seemed unbowed after the day ended. "Intel officials were clear Microsoft pressure had nothing to do with their decision," spokesman Mark Murray told a crowd of assembled reporters.
"We showed clearly that Microsoft's concern was over specific technical and business issues NSP could create. The government chose a witness who clearly has an ax to grind."
