And in today's episode of "Redmond Justice," Microsoft lawyer John Warden gets to catch his breath after some four days' worth of strenuous cross-examination of Netscape head honcho Jim Barksdale. Warden painted a dire picture of Microsoft as the poor victim of a Netscape-government conspiracy to trump up antitrust charges and get the Redmond software maker out of the browser market. But now it's the government's turn at bat, and up first was Department of Justice attorney David Boies who "systematically rebutted" Microsoft's claim that Microsoft was "set up" by Netscape. Computer Reseller News has more details about the day's ongoing drama.

Boies apparently covered a lot of ground in one day. Challenging Microsoft's recent claim that the infamous June 1995 meeting (at which it is alleged that Microsoft illegally tried to divide the browser market with Netscape) was a setup by Netscape, he produced several internal Microsoft email messages sent a few weeks before the meeting. Those messages reveal Microsoft's growing concerns that Netscape could win the browser wars, and their intention "to move Netscape out of the Win32 Internet client arena," which was, of course, the topic of that fateful meeting. Boies put forth that if the meeting two weeks later was really a Netscape setup, they must have been crafty enough to hack into Microsoft's email servers and plant those messages, too. In addition, he addressed that mysterious 3 AM email message from Netscape's then-CEO Jim Clark sent nearly six months before. Microsoft contends that the message, which offers to work together, was the natural precursor to the June meeting, but in a videotaped explanation, Clark himself claims that the message was "a moment of weakness and fear on the part of a small company looking into the eyes of the world's most powerful software company." Pretty scary, huh, kids?

And finally, as if any of us really needed it, we received candid behind-the-scenes confirmation that Internet Explorer is Steve Jobs' "browser of choice" (and, more importantly, the new default browser for the Mac OS) because otherwise we wouldn't have Office 98. A handwritten note from Apple's chief money guy Fred Anderson to Barksdale was entered into evidence, over Microsoft's objections. In that note, Anderson apologized to Barksdale for the Internet Explorer deal, and more specifically for not telling Netscape about it before it was announced to the world in August of last year. (Oooo, harsh!) Anderson claimed that Apple needed to switch to IE "or [they] were dead," because otherwise Microsoft wouldn't provide Office for the Mac. So there you have it: the real reason for the switch had nothing to do with which browser is actually better-- and you probably have your own opinions on that front-- but rather whether or not the Mac platform could stand a chance without Office. Oh, the complexities...