IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ... - …

[Pages:19]IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

STATE OF NEW YORK ex. rel. Attorney General ELIOT SPITZER, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 98-1233 (CKK)

DIRECT TESTIMONY OF LINDA WOLFE AVERETT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background. 1

I.

The Role of Digital Media Technology in Windows. 3

A. Identifying a Baseline of Functionality in Windows for Digital Media Applications. 4

B. The Two-Stage Process of Exposing Digital

Media Functionality in Windows to Developers. 8

C. Digital Media Functionality Currently

Exposed by Microsoft in Windows XP.. 9

D. Microsoft's Compliance with the Proposed Consent

Decree with Regard to "Windows Media Player". 11

II. Specific Complaints Raised by RealNetworks. 12

. "Copy to Audio CD" Functionality. 12

A. Secure Audio Path.. 15

B. Play All Feature. 18 C. IE6 Media Bar. 20 D. Music Search Capability. 27 E. Default Choice of Media Player. 28 F. Autoplay Issues. 29

1.

My name is Linda Wolfe Averett. I am the Product Unit Manager for Windows Media

Player in the Digital Media Division of the Platforms Group at Microsoft Corporation. Before being

promoted to my current position, I was the Group Program Manager for the Windows Media Platform.

2.

As Product Unit Manager of Windows Media Player, I have overall responsibility for

(i) determining what features to include in the software, (ii) identifying the target users of the software,

(iii) planning when new versions of the software will be released to the marketplace, (iv) evaluating

technologies to be included in the software, and (v) deciding which of those technologies will be offered

to developers building on the Windows platform so that they can call upon the technologies in their own

products.

Background

3.

From 1995 to 1997, I was the Group Program Manager for a digital imaging product called

Picture It. As Microsoft's first entry into the digital imaging segment of the software business, Picture It

was a relatively simple application designed to make it easy for consumers to take advantage of the

emerging field of digital photography. From 1997 to 1999, I was Group Program Manager for Picture It

and for another Microsoft digital imaging product called PhotoDraw. Unlike Picture It, PhotoDraw was

aimed at corporate customers rather than consumers. Our goal was to make it easy for people with no

graphics expertise to include pictures in documents or in Web pages on corporate intranets.

4.

I have worked in the computer industry for more than 30 years. After graduating from the

University of Tennessee in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics, I worked for

the Atomic Energy Commission as a software developer for two years, and then I went to work for a

small company called Electronics Associates. It was there that I got my first exposure to operating

systems. Electronics Associates developed real-time operating systems for use in instrumentation

control. A real-time operating system is one that reacts on an almost instantaneous basis to inputs in order

to affect a process it is controlling. Such real-time operating systems are embedded in industrial

controllers and similar devices.

5.

After two years at Electronics Associates, I went to work for Hewlett-Packard. I spent the

next eight years working my way up through the ranks from lead developer to project manager to research

and development manager. Most of my time at Hewlett-Packard was spent focused on real-time operating

systems used in various types of medical equipment and instrumentation control. My last project at

Hewlett-Packard involved the development of a new computer system with what is known as a reduced

instruction set computing (or RISC) architecture--as opposed to the complex instruction set computing

(or CISC) architecture of most Intel-compatible microprocessors.

6.

In 1981, I left Hewlett-Packard and went into business with my husband developing

computer games. Our company developed most of the games for the Philips Odyssey gaming console, an

early precursor of Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox. The company later started developing games for personal computers ("PCs"). As a result, I have had substantial experience as a third-party developer building applications to run on the Windows platform.

I.

The Role of Digital Media Technology in Windows

7.

As a leading platform company, Microsoft listens carefully to the input of developers who

are building on the Windows platform. Based on my experience first as a developer of Windows

applications and then as a program manager for digital imaging and digital media applications at

Microsoft, I believe that Microsoft enables developers to create world-class applications on Windows.

Microsoft does that by providing (i) a rich, stable and consistent platform that provides developers with

assurance that their products will run on different brands of PCs, and (ii) powerful tools and interfaces

that developers can rely on to build their products. It is Microsoft's willingness to supply developers with

increasingly rich functionality that enables them to focus on providing unique value-added features in

their products instead of re-implementing and re-testing core functionality. If Windows becomes frag-

mented, the pace at which new hardware and software products get created for use with Windows would

slow.

8.

I also believe--based on my experience as a developer of consumer products for Windows--

that the rich, stable and consistent Windows platform is what enables the typical consumer to go to Wal-

Mart to buy a PC that supports a wide range of hardware and software. Prior to the days of Windows 3.1

and establishment of the multimedia PC, it was essentially impossible for an average user to buy a PC that

would run his/her multimedia applications. The user had to understand what type of display, what type of

sound card, and what type of video card was installed on his/her PC, and other equally arcane technical

issues; then the user had to read the disclaimer for each piece of software to verify it had been tested with

the configuration of software and hardware on the user's PC. It was not until Windows established a

baseline of hardware and software functionality for multimedia applications that retailers and consumers

alike could be confident that those multimedia applications would run on PCs. That baseline of

functionality also permitted developers to focus on innovating in multimedia applications rather than

testing all possible configurations of hardware and software that a user might end up with on his/her PC.

Providing ever better functionality in the operating system to support digital media applications is an

important part of our efforts to advance Windows as a platform.

A.

Identifying a Baseline of Functionality in

Windows for Digital Media Applications

9.

The primary jobs of the Windows Media team are to ensure that (i) Windows operating

systems are a great platform on which to develop digital media applications, (ii) users have a compelling

media experience with Windows right out of the box, and (iii) the end-to-end media functionality in

Windows meets developers' and users' requirements. To be successful at our primary jobs, my Windows

Media team does three basic things for each release.

10.

First, we identify the feature set required to provide a compelling media experience for

Windows users and to enable potential business models for content providers. This becomes the feature

set of Windows Media Player in any given release.

11.

Second, we identify the baseline media functionality that all developers need to call upon in

creating digital media applications, and then make that baseline functionality available in Windows

through published application programming interfaces ("APIs"). Note that for any given release, the

baseline functionality is a subset of all the media features we include in Windows because those features

have to be implemented, tested and shown to provide value to users and/or developers before we make

them part of the baseline functionality. Additionally, not all of the features we implement will become

part of the baseline functionality because not all of them are generally useful to a wide range of

developers. The baseline functionality is used throughout Microsoft to provide integrated media

features--as opposed to each Microsoft product team re-implementing that baseline functionality. That

baseline functionality is also used both by third-party developers of Windows applications as well as by

Web page designers.

12.

As I noted above, including this baseline functionality in Windows enables developers of

digital media applications to concentrate on value-added features that will make their products more

appealing to consumers rather than spending their time re-implementing the baseline functionality. This

has the effect of providing more choices for consumers and driving the state of the art forward at a faster

rate because the cost of entry into digital media applications is lowered and that enables more developers

to bring products to market.

13.

Third, for any given release, Windows Media Player is a test vehicle for ensuring that a wide

variety of hardware devices work in end-to-end media experiences right out of the box. This end-to-end

testing benefits all developers who provide digital media products for Windows because their products all

need to work with those same hardware devices. In other words, the end-to-end testing that Microsoft

does with Windows Media Player benefits users even if they choose to use another media player. For

example, in the recent Windows XP release, Windows Media Player served as the end-to-end test vehicle

for copying information to read/write CD-ROMs and for Video/Mixer/Renderer ("VMR") accelerated

video display capabilities. Other developers can now call upon that functionality, which is stable and

reliable by virtue of the end-to-end testing it received through Windows Media Player.

14.

Like software in general, the baseline functionality for digital media applications changes over

time. Three or four years ago, the baseline functionality that developers needed was the ability to play

audio and video content stored locally on a user's PC and to stream multimedia content down from the

Internet. Using such streaming technology, consumers with relatively high bandwidth connections could

listen to audio content and watch video content in a manner similar to broadcast radio or television. Dial-

up modem users could also see/hear lower quality renditions of the same content. All leading media

players, including Apple's QuickTime and RealNetworks' various media players, all supported streaming

in that timeframe.

15.

The feature set required to provide a compelling experience for users of digital media

applications has broadened substantially over the past four years. It now includes the ability to (i) copy

media to and from devices such as a CD or portable digital music player, (ii) manage a content library,

(iii) acquire and display metadata about the media being played and (iv) create and display a playlist of

that media. Metadata is information that is associated with a particular media file, such as the name of a

song, the artist, the track names on a CD, the chapter titles on a DVD, the year the recording was made or

the musical genre. A playlist is a collection of songs or other media that a user or an Internet content

provider has selected to play. The latest software from Microsoft, RealNetworks, Apple and MusicMatch

support most or all of these features. The screen shot below shows an example of a playlist displayed in Windows Media Player that includes metadata for the tracks on a popular music CD.

16.

Windows XP includes baseline functionality (exposed through APIs) to support the feature set

currently required for a compelling media experience, and as part of our ongoing Windows development

process we will soon be identifying how to enhance that baseline functionality for the next version of

Windows. For instance, we may provide higher level APIs that enrich our current baseline functionality,

such as the ability to (i) copy media to and from a device such as a portable MP3 player or the CD drive

of a PC while managing the associated metadata and digital rights, (ii) easily view and manage a media

library, including quick access to basic filters on the library (such as the name of the artist), and

(iii) synchronize media between a portable device and a local library. A media library is a fast index for

viewing and filtering content. Once this improved baseline functionality is made accessible to Windows

developers, they will be able to take advantage of it in their products. That will permit developers to

focus their efforts on new innovations beyond the baseline functionality, providing more compelling

products for users.

B.

The Two-Stage Process of Exposing Digital

Media Functionality in Windows to Developers

17.

The process I have described above is evolutionary and proceeds in two basic stages. Let me

provide a real-life example of what I am talking about. For Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows

ME"), the Windows Media Player included a feature to copy songs to an audio CD. Third-party developers offered a similar feature and each invested substantial effort to developing and testing the feature. This functionality was clearly established in the marketplace as baseline functionality that a broad range of developers would need in creating digital media applications. So, recognizing this new baseline functionality, Windows XP now exposes to all applications the ability to copy information to a read/write CD-ROM through a set of APIs that are fully documented on the Microsoft Developer Network ("MSDN"). Building on that baseline functionality, Windows Media Player permits users to create an audio CD by (i) specifying particular songs to be copied to the audio CD, (ii) converting those songs to the standard CD-compatible ("Redbook") audio format that is used to record audio CDs, and (iii) calling the APIs in Windows to copy the songs to the CD. Today, other developers can use the baseline functionality in Windows to copy information to read/write CD-ROMs, but each of those developers has to implement the code that converts songs to the Redbook audio format before calling those Windows APIs. For the next version of Windows, we will consider providing a set of interfaces that will do the conversion of songs to Redbook audio format as well as copying those songs to a CD, thus enabling a wider range of developers to include this end-to-end functionality in their products.

18.

There are valid technical reasons for following this two-stage process. You first need to

create a new technology on an end-to-end basis and become very knowledgeable about how it works

before you start breaking the technology into pieces that can be made available for other developers to

use. Until Microsoft is confident that it has figured out how to provide a particular functionality, it does

not want third-party developers building products that rely on our functionality. Microsoft needs to be

confident that it has delivered the right technology, with the right APIs that it can support for a long time

in Windows. Opening a functionality up to third-party developers at the very outset would severely limit

Microsoft's ability to change the way it implemented the functionality. Such changes may be necessary

to fix problems with the original implementation or to improve its performance. Thus, until Microsoft is

comfortable that it has implemented a functionality correctly, it does not want to make that functionality

available to the world at large and create an expensive legacy that must be supported over time.

C.

Digital Media Functionality Currently

Exposed by Microsoft in Windows XP

19.

Microsoft has a broad range of APIs that it makes available in Windows XP for use by digital

media applications. Windows includes a runtime that will play content encoded in the Windows Media

format and MP3 format; I refer to this as the WMF runtime. The WMF runtime is part of Windows and

the interfaces it exposes to developers are fully documented on MSDN. As a result, anyone who wants to

use the WMF runtime to play content encoded in Windows Media format or the MP3 format can do so.

All that developers need to do is download the WMF SDK (short for software development kit) from

MSDN and accept the standard license agreement. Microsoft also makes a redistributable version of the

WMF runtime available in the WMF SDK so that developers can be sure the latest version of the

technology is present on certain older versions of Windows on which their digital media applications may

run. As a result, various media players, including RealNetworks' RealOne, are able to play content

encoded in Windows Media format without having to implement that functionality in their own products.

20.

There is another set of high level media APIs in Windows XP called the Windows Media

Player OCX that are also fully documented in MSDN. Large numbers of developers use these APIs

today. A developer can call upon the APIs exposed by the Windows Media Player OCX without under-

standing much of anything about digital media technology; we have tried to make it very simple and straightforward. Developers of Windows applications and Web page designers can play various types of audio and video content using the Windows Media Player OCX, and can expose standard functions like Start, Stop, Pause, Rewind, Fast Forward and Volume to users. The screen shots below show the Windows Media Player OCX playing a clip in the Web page for Yahoo! Finance Vision.

D.

Microsoft's Compliance with the Proposed Consent

Decree with Regard to "Windows Media Player"

21.

Microsoft is currently engaged in determining all internal interfaces in Windows that are

relied on by Windows Media Player, which uses the Windows Media Player OCX and the WMF SDK.

We are doing this work because Windows Media Player has been classified as "Microsoft Middleware"

under the Proposed Consent Decree. When we are finished, all interfaces used by Windows Media Player

to call other parts of Windows (including other blocks of software code classified as "Microsoft Middle-

ware") will be documented on MSDN such that other developers have the ability to use those same

interfaces. Microsoft intends to comply with the letter and spirit of the Proposed Consent Decree, and

thus the Windows Media Player team has performed a very rigorous review of our software code to

ensure we will be in compliance with Section III.D by the established deadline.

22.

It is my team's general practice to use documented interfaces to call upon functionality in the

remainder of Windows. We do this for sound engineering reasons--just like other developers outside

Microsoft do. If we use undocumented internal interfaces, we run the risk that software will break when

those interfaces change as Windows is improved in successive versions. Similarly, we encourage other

teams within the Windows organization and third-party developers to use only documented APIs to call

upon the functionality of Windows Media Player and the technologies on which it relies.

23.

We have run automatic tools against the source code for both the Windows Media Player,

which includes the Windows Media Player OCX, and the WMF SDK to determine interfaces they call in

other parts of the operating system. We have run these tools against versions 7 and 7.1 on Windows 2000

and against our new version of Windows Media Player which is currently under development, code-

named Corona. In addition, we have performed a manual review of the source code to look for calls to

interfaces that are not easily identified with automatic tools. This is a painstaking process, and we are

devoting substantial resources to ensure that it is done correctly.

II.

Specific Complaints Raised by RealNetworks

A.

"Copy to Audio CD" Functionality

24.

I am aware that RealNetworks has raised an issue with the fact that an individual launch point

in Windows XP that provides access to the "Copy to Audio CD" functionality of Windows Media Player

is not accessible to third-party products. That launch point appears as a hyperlink in the left-hand panel of

the My Music folder. A screen shot showing the launch point appears below.

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