By Julian Goldsmith, 22 October 1998 17:22
NEWS Microsoft has started raising the stakes in its defence against the US Department of Justice this week. Lawyers representing the Seattle software giant produced a document which indicates that Jim Clark, chairman of rival Netscape, suggested the two companies collaborate to create a browser duopoly. The document is a hard copy of an email sent six months before a meeting between the two companies. It allegedly contains suggestions made by Clark that Microsoft should buy a stake in Netscape as a way of getting into the Internet market. The letter was produced before Netscape CEO, Jim Barksdale, who was reported as "squirming in his seat". It could discredit the prosecution's claim that Microsoft tried to bully Netscape into sharing the browser market. Netscape's lawyers responded to the newly produced document by saying Clark had a lot of his own money invested in the company and it had been struggling financially at the time. They maintained that the memo had nothing to do with the meeting six months later.
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