A federal judge narrowed the scope of a subpoena on Tuesday that Microsoft had issued to Oracle as part of its defense against antitrust allegations of illegally using monopoly power.
US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered that Oracle provide Microsoft, the world's leading software company, with information about agreements it had entered into with a group of other high-tech companies.
Oracle's lawyer said he was pleased that the company need not provide information about discussions that never led to completed agreements.
A Microsoft spokesman said the decision gave neither side what it wanted.
Microsoft issued broad subpoenas to several of its leading competitors on 9 September, arguing it needed the evidence to defend itself against government allegations.
The Justice Department and 20 states allege that Microsoft illegally used a monopoly in personal computer operating systems to preserve and extend its dominance.
Microsoft said it issued the subpoenas to gather materials about how its competitors got together to fight Microsoft.
Donald Falk, a lawyer for Oracle -- the leading database software company and the No. 2 independent software maker after Microsoft -- said his company was "quite pleased with the decision."
He said what the judge had ordered was "narrower than what we had offered to do" in order to avoid going to court in the first place.
He described the order as very narrow and said it reflected Microsoft's "pattern of overreaching in the trial as elsewhere."
But Mark Murray, a spokesman for Microsoft, said that the court ruling "doesn't give either side exactly what they wanted. We are looking forward to getting the information the court has ordered [Oracle] to provide."
The trial begins 15 October and one of its major focuses will be Microsoft's bitter competition with Netscape for control of the market for Internet Web browsers.
Separately, two authors of a new book about Microsoft and its rival Netscape refused to provide raw tapes and transcripts also subpoenaed by Microsoft. But they left the door open to negotiations with the company.
Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and Its Battle with Microsoft examines the rivalry closely. The book, by Harvard Business School Professor David Yoffie and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Michael Cusumano, is set for release on 20 October.
Microsoft subpoenaed the tapes and transcripts of interviews for that book.
Allan Ryan, a lawyer for Harvard University, said that Harvard and MIT sent a notice to Microsoft refusing the subpoena.
"The ball is in Microsoft's court," he said. Microsoft could choose to go to federal court and try to compel the professors to comply, or it could try to negotiate a settlement.
"If anything goes to federal court, Microsoft will be the one to bring it there," Ryan said in a telephone interview.
The book takes a thorough look at what Netscape did right and wrong in its competition with Microsoft, one of the fiercest commercial battles of the 1990s, the authors said. It finds 20 separate principles or lessons that can be drawn from the company's experience.
"We feel we cannot give up the tapes or transcripts," Yoffie said. "We certainly can give up the manuscript. Our hope is we can help the court verify any quotes in dispute."
Copyright© 1998 Reuters Limited.
