Representatives from the wireless industry are being asked to testify against Microsoft Corp. in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the computer software giant, each with new insight into how Microsoft is allegedly muscling into new markets and resisting cooperating with competitors.
A witness list released Dec. 14 revealed Michael Mace, Palm Inc.’s chief competition officer, and William Plummer, Nokia Corp.’s vice president of government affairs, are expected to testify. Mace is expected to speak on Microsoft’s aggressive entry into the handheld computer market, and Plummer likely will address the issue of open standards for mobile phones.
“We want to reflect our commitment to a free, fair and open mobile architecture,” said Megan Matthews, spokeswoman for Nokia.
Palm would not comment on the specifics of its testimony.
Microsoft is noticeably absent from a long list of companies working together to create an open mobile-phone standard, which will use the GSM/GPRS air-interface technology evolutionary path leading to wideband CDMA.
Sun Microsystems Inc., NTT DoCoMo, IBM Corp., Oracle and Hewlett-Packard Co. are among the participants in the effort, dubbed “The Liberty Alliance.” Nokia is spearheading the initiative.
There is speculation that the alliance was formed expressly to compete against Microsoft, but both Nokia and Microsoft have denied there is any animosity.
Mike Wehrs, director of technology and standards for the mobility division at Microsoft, told RCR Wireless News in November that it was “excited that Nokia is taking an open standards point-of-view.”
Wehrs did go on to say, however, that because the architecture is built around the Symbian operating system, other operating systems will be at a disadvantage.
Nokia denied his claim.
