Bill Gates did not act like the chief executive officer of the largest computer company in the world on Monday, when the first extracts from 20 hours of videotaped deposition were shown to the court in Washington. On the basis of his responses, he appeared to be disengaged from the business of his company.

Objections by Microsoft lawyers that a transcript should suffice were overruled by Judge Jackson. The video was released to the media afterwards, and it was easy to see why Microsoft wanted the video to remain confidential.

Mr Gates' attitude to the questions, his unresponsiveness, and his failure to answer questions directly weighed heavily against the credibility of Microsoft's defence.

He often paused for an inordinate time before giving a non-committal response to a very simple question, and frequently claimed not to remember what had happened. This did not accord with other evidence about his memory, which is generally regarded as exceptional.

First extracts of Mr Gates ' deposition seen as setback for defence

Documents produced by David Boies, the Department of Justice's trial lawyer, showed that Mr Gates was indeed at the centre of Microsoft policy making, orchestrating anti-competitive actions against Netscape, Sun and Apple.

It was very interesting that Mr Gates claimed there was a company policy that prohibited "dividing markets" (as with the proposal to Netscape to divide the browser market), and that contravening the policy was a reason for disciplinary action.

In an e-mail to Microsoft vice-president Paul Maritz and others, Mr Gates wrote: "Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?"

Mr Boies' questions about this e-mail give the flavour of Mr Gates' responses:

Mr Boies: "Did you send this e-mail, Mr Gates, on or about August 8, 1997?"

Mr Gates: "I don't remember sending it."

Mr Boies: "Do you have any doubt that you sent it?"

Mr Gates: "No. It appears to be an e-mail I sent."

Mr Boies: "What do you mean when you asked Mr Maritz whether or not, 'Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?'"

Mr Gates: "I don't remember."

Microsoft's trial lawyer John Warden was at pains to point out that Mr Gates' primary concern about Microsoft's relationship with Apple was to settle what Microsoft calls a patent dispute, and not to persuade Apple to bundle Internet Explorer instead of Netscape Navigator.

The dispute apparently concerned some Apple QuickTime program code found in key Microsoft products, and was the subject of a court action brought by Apple against Microsoft and others, which Microsoft said it wished to resolve.

Conflicting accounts

This story conflicted with an e-mail Mr Gates wrote on 23 June 1996 wherein he said he had "two key goals in investing in the Apple relationship" which were to maintain the market share of Microsoft Office in the Mac market, and to get Apple to "embrace Internet Explorer in some way" - with no mention of settling the legal case.

Mr Gates said he was unable to recall, indicating - as John Ludwig of Microsoft put it - that "[Mr Gates'] top priority is for us to get the browser in the October OS release from Apple. We should do whatever it takes to make this happen."

A particularly revealing e-mail from Ben Waldman, who was in charge of Microsoft's Mac software, to Mr Gates directly contradicts Mr Gates' assertion that there was only an internal debate at Microsoft as to whether it should update the Mac version of Microsoft Office, which Apple regarded as very important for its survival at the time.

Mr Waldman wrote: "The threat to cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly the strongest bargaining point that we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately. I also believe that Apple is taking this threat pretty seriously."

By threatening to withdraw Mac Office 97, Apple's agreement to prefer IE to Navigator and settle the dispute over the QuickTime code was easily obtained.

Testimony was 'truthful and accurate'

A press statement from Microsoft quoted Joseph diGenova, a legal consultant to Microsoft and a former attorney general for the District of Columbia: "This was an ordinary deposition of an extraordinary man. . . . Mr Gates' testimony was truthful and accurate, and it was precise."

Since Mr diGenova is not known to be an expert on the technical issues being discussed, it is hard to see how his value judgement of the accuracy of Mr Gates' testimony can be supported.

Informed opinion in the media has been almost universally that Microsoft did not have a good day on Monday.

Mark Murray, Microsoft's spokesman at the trial, claimed that the government (as the DoJ is generally referred to, since it is part of the government) wished "to paint Mr Gates in a negative light" and make the revelations "sensational" by using "out of context" excerpts.

Mr Murray's claim that Mr Gates "answered the questions in a precise and accurate way", reflecting diGenova's comment, was perhaps the most misleading statement about the testimony.

The first extracts from Mr Gates' deposition were a serious setback for Microsoft's defence. Avie Tevanian of Apple was next up to be cross-examined.