One of the most dramatic allegations to arise from the ongoing "Redmond Justice" trial was made by Apple's own Avie Tevanian, who claims that Microsoft intentionally introduced bugs (in the form of bogus alert messages) into Windows in order to persuade customers to disable QuickTime and switch back to ActiveMovie, Microsoft's competing media system. Avie's written testimony even included a screenshot of one of those error messages, which certainly seems suspicious: "Some of the file types usually associated with ActiveMovie are currently associated with other programs. Because of this, you may be unable to play certain types of multimedia files. Do you want to fix this (by restoring the file types to ActiveMovie)?" Hmmm.

However, a new wrinkle popped up today, as Microsoft issued a press release claiming that the bugs are not in Windows, but are actually in QuickTime itself. According to Microsoft, their new evidence "definitively" proves that "QuickTime's failures when running on Windows are in fact caused by programming errors made by Apple, not Microsoft." They further claim that this has now been confirmed by an independent software testing lab named Mindcraft, who has posted a web page describing Apple's errors, and links to a fix. Apparently the problem is that the QuickTime plug-in for Windows doesn't properly initialize certain software variables for three of eleven supported file types. Whoops!

When last we checked, Apple hadn't publicly responded to this news, but we bet their public relations folks aren't getting much sleep. The Justice Department might be doing a little tossing and turning, as well. After all, Avie's testimony against Microsoft might well have been the most damaging so far, but all that stuff about "knifing the baby" and "if you want Office 98 you'd better publicly endorse Internet Explorer" might just fall by the wayside as everyone focuses on the alleged bugs in QuickTime. We have to hand it to Microsoft-- they are certainly masters of misdirection and timing. Isn't it interesting that the data about the QuickTime bugs seems to have been released just after Avie stepped down from the stand, so he couldn't address the issue in court? If one were truly the suspicious type, one might even suspect that this whole distraction was planned from the beginning-- but no one's that paranoid, right?

Now that Avie has left the stand, it's time to move on to the next sideshow in the "Redmond Justice" Cavalcade of Antitrust™. Let's see, where were we... Microsoft bullied Netscape, Microsoft bullied AOL, Microsoft bullied Apple... oh yes, now we come to "Microsoft bullied Intel." Those are the latest allegations made by the government in the trial that continues to be your best entertainment value in the court system today. The New York Times has some great coverage of this latest accusation.

This time it's Intel vice president Scott McGeady on the stand, testifying that in 1995, Bill Gates became "enraged" when he discovered that Intel had over seven hundred engineers working on Internet software products. Those products would directly compete with Microsoft's own Internet software. If you've been following the trial at all, Gates' next move is entirely predictable and yet still gloriously entertaining: he threatened to withdraw Windows support from Intel's new processors. McGeady characterizes the threat as "both credible and fairly terrifying," since a lack of Windows support would render Intel's new chips essentially worthless in a Microsoft-dominated marketplace. Gates backed up his threat by announcing a "major program" to support DEC's Alpha chip, one of Intel's biggest competitors. Faced with such a prospect, Intel disbanded its architecture labs and ceased all further development on Internet software.

Of course, that's not how Gates sees things, and in fact, McGeady's testimony directly contradicts Gates' videotaped deposition, in which he plainly states that Microsoft never threatened to withold Windows support from Intel, and never demanded that Intel cease any software development. So on this point, it all comes down to whom you believe. McGeady's testimony paints a compelling (and downright familiar) portrait, though; just as Avie claimed that Microsoft was willing to cede the "content creation" side of multimedia software to Apple, McGeady states that Microsoft told Intel to work on "servers for the high-end business market." In other words, Microsoft allegedly routinely "strongly suggests" that competitors work on "something useless that would not interfere with Microsoft," which translates roughly into "go play in traffic." We can't wait to see where things go from here.

Oooo, suspense-- the force that makes the world go 'round. For example, take that mysterious Mezzanine slot on the iMac's motherboard. It's a PCI-based variation of Apple's own personality card slot architecture, meaning that it could theoretically support just about any function you can stick on a PCI card. The mystery is, why is Apple keeping so quiet about this magical slot that could eliminate so many of the iMac's perceived shortcomings of unexpandibility? In public, they rarely even admit that it exists. In private, they not only haven't released specs on the proprietary slot to hardware developers, but they've also flat-out told those developers not to create anything that uses said slot. In fact, Apple went so far as to remind the buying public that any "unapproved" modifications to the iMac's motherboard (such as installing a Mezzanine card, nudge, nudge) would void the system's warranty. So why the cover-up?

The earliest rumors as to the reason for all the hand-waving indicate that Apple has its own plans for that slot, though no one seems to know what those plans are. We've heard dark whispers of an Apple-branded DVD-ROM upgrade kit, which relies on a Mezzanine card for the MPEG-decoding hardware. Other parties claim that Apple's preparing a TV tuner and video in/out system for the iMac, allowing consumers to digitize and edit their home video footage using that Final Cut software that Apple bought from Macromedia several months back. A variation on that rumor states that the card is actually a FireWire card, which allows the transfer of digital video data directly from newer camcorders equipped with a "DV OUT" port; the beauty of FireWire, though, is that it also allows the use of high-speed data devices, like SCSI but faster, more reliable, and more flexible. None of these rumors has really developed beyond the whisper stage, but NoBeige indicates that, whatever it is we're waiting for, we should see it in time for Christmas, so the mystery may not endure all that much longer.

Incidentally, despite Apple's warning, several hardware vendors are proceeding with plans to ship expansion cards destined for the iMac's Mezzanine slot. The most intriguing right now is Formac's combined SCSI/TV tuner/video-in module, still in the works. As for currently-shipping enhancements, Griffin's iPort, a serial port and external monitor solution, is now available, and while it reportedly doesn't use the Mezzanine slot itself, it does take up the space provided for Mezzanine cards. So if you own an iMac and you plan on getting one of these third-party Mezzanine cards, just keep in mind that you'll have to choose between it and whatever Apple plans for this "Christmas surprise." (We're keeping our fingers crossed for an iMac-controlled espresso machine-- are the elves in Santa's hardware labs listening?)