Windows costs just $50, Microsoft tells court

By Simon Aughton

Posted on 12 Dec 2006 at 12:33

Microsoft has outlined its defence of the latest of the several class-action antitrust lawsuits it has faced, this time in the US state of Iowa.

In his opening statement, Microsoft's lead attorney, David Tulchin, started by assuring jurors that the issues involved are not as complex as the plaintiffs' attorneys had suggested in their opening remarks.

'The real issues are not complicated,' Tulchin said. 'The real issues will be clear.'

He said that the case comes down to three simple questions: were consumers harmed by violations of Iowa's competition law?; was $50 on average too high for a pre-installed operating system?; and was there an overcharge?. The answer to all three questions, he said, is no.

Tulchin insisted that the high prices for Microsoft products quoted by the plaintiffs' were based on selective data.

The average price of Microsoft Windows operating system software pre-installed has remained about $50 during the past decade, he told the court, while the average price paid for all copies sold of Microsoft Word has dropped from $235 in 1988 to $38 in 2005, and the average price of all copies sold of Microsoft Excel has dropped during the same period from $249 to $36.

'We didn't take a little sliver of data where the only thing that's being reported are the highest possible prices such as the retail channel,' he said.

Tulchin will continue his opening remarks later today. Yesterday counsel for the plaintiff's alleged that Microsoft had deliberately erased email relating to their case, then produced an email from 2004 in which Jim Allchin, a senior Microsoft executive, told fellow execs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer that the company had lost its way and that he would buy a Mac.

The case continues.