MS left red-faced over video gaffe

Microsoft was left in an embarrassing situation last week, following a series of blunders in the Washington District Court that left the software giant blushing.

Jim Allchin, senior vice president of Microsoft's personal and business systems group, was the principal fall guy as he presented video evidence to the court that he said proved Windows and Internet Explorer were inextricably linked.

To refute the government's contention that the Windows operating system functions normally without Explorer, the video tape showed Microsoft engineers demonstrating 'performance degradation' of Windows when Explorer was blocked by a software program used earlier in the trial by government witness Edward Felten.

However, it quickly became apparent to the court that the system on the tape did not appear to be using Felten's program after all. David Boies, lead attorney for the government, leapt onto the opportunity to capitalise on the blunder, asking Allchin: 'How in the world could your people have run this program, calling it the Felten Program when they knew it was not?'

Allchin insisted that it was a bona fide demonstration, adding: 'The performance problem exists.

I apparently didn't check the title bar close enough. But I personally tested this and I know it to be a fact.'

To compound the embarrassment, it transpired that the PC in Microsoft's video demonstration was not one, but several computers. Microsoft had initially implied that the video evidence showed one seamless demonstration filmed on one PC.

Allchin finally managed to provide a new, unedited tape filmed on one machine that demonstrated Microsoft's software experienced problems when Felten's software was installed, but the video failed to convince Judge Thomas Jackson.

'It certainly casts doubt on the reliability - on the entire reliability - of the video demonstration,' Jackson told Allchin.