Steven McGeady
Encyclopedia
Steven McGeady is a former Intel executive best known as a witness in the Microsoft antitrust trial
. His notes contained colorful quotes by Microsoft executives threatening to "cut off Netscape
's air supply" and Bill Gates' guess that "this anti-trust thing will blow over". Attorney David Boies
said that McGeady's testimony showed him to be "an extremely conscientious, capable and honest witness," while Microsoft portrayed him as someone with an "axe to grind." McGeady left Intel in 2000, but later again gained notoriety for defending his former employee Mike Hawash
after his arrest on federal terrorism charges. He is a member of the Reed College
Board of Trustees and the PNCA
Board of Governors, and lives in Portland, Oregon
.
. After high school in Michigan City, Indiana
he briefly attended Purdue University
. Then in 1976 he enrolled at Reed College
in Portland, Oregon
. While attending Reed College from 1977-1980, he studied Physics and Philosophy, but did not graduate. The majority of his time was occupied at the school’s computer center where he and friends would experiment with a Digital Equipment Corp. computer donated by the founder of Tektronix
, the first in the Northwest to run the Unix
operating system.
After college, McGeady was a software engineering manager at Ann Arbor Terminals and Oregon based Tektronix. Then in 1985 he joined Intel where in 1991 he co-founded the Intel Architecture Labs
in Hillsboro
. In 1993, he was promoted to a vice president position at the company.
McGeady was a co-founder of the Intel Architecture Labs
, a research and development group focused on advancing the personal-computer platform. McGeady ran the software, multimedia
, data security
, and Internet
programs within this group for most of the 1990s. His group developed Intel's ProShare video-conferencing technology, the Indeo
video compression technology, and Intel's Display Control Interface and VXD
graphics software, later licensed to Microsoft to form the core of DirectX
. His research group worked with the MIT Media Lab
, Xerox PARC
, and other groups, and developed early prototypes of Digital video recorders
, video broadcast servers, and other technologies.
As manager of the i960 software development tools team from 1986-1996, McGeady was an early developer and promoter of the Richard Stallman
's GNU
C compiler and tools. McGeady wrote the i960 target for gcc
and led the team that developed a suite of tools including a globally optimizing, trace-driven optimizer for gcc and the first gdb port to a remote, stand-alone system. He hired Cygnus Support
to integrate those changes into the mainline GNU tools, and to improve the tools' ability to deal with many object file formats.
McGeady was Vice-President of Intel's Multimedia, Communications, and Internet activities from 1990 through 1996, where he led the development of the first desktop video-compression software for the PC, Intel's early implementations of multimedia network broadcast protocols, the first products to combine television and web pages, online virtual communities, the Java language, and data security infrastructure.
As a software engineer and developer, McGeady was often a minority voice at hardware-dominated Intel. In 1996 he was asked by then-CEO Andy Grove to take a job as Grove's assistant, and is the only known person to turn the job down. Grove later said that he and Intel would have grasped the importance of the Internet to the company more quickly had McGeady taken the job. McGeady had a less positive relationship with succeeding CEO Craig Barrett, reportedly telling Barrett to "pound sand" when Barrett instructed him not to testify in the Microsoft case.
's attempts to control Intel's software efforts as well as their behavior toward Netscape
and Sun's Javasoft. He was the only executive from the PC industry to testify for the government. McGeady testified that Microsoft opposed Intel's 1995 work on a new technology called Native Signal Processing, which would have used instructions from Intel's chips, rather than software code from Microsoft, to run multimedia and communications programs more quickly.
McGeady testified for the government and against Microsoft despite pressure from inside Intel. Intel's then-COO Craig Barrett instructed McGeady not to cooperate with Department of Justice attorneys, but "He[told] Barrett to go stuff it".
McGeady also claimed in his testimony that Microsoft
Vice-President Paul Maritz
had described, in a meeting at Intel, Microsoft's plan to "embrace, extend,[and] extinguish" the HTML
standard until it would be incompatible with the Netscape
browser. While this term had some currency before his 1998 testimony, this was its first prominent public exposure. Documents presented by the government showed Microsoft was concerned about McGeady: "Steve McGeady remains an issue for us. He is a champion of Java, and a believer that the day of bloatware is over," wrote Microsoft VP Paul Maritz
in an email to Bill Gates
. He has more IQ than most[people at Intel] ."
In November 1998, McGeady testified that Microsoft
leveraged its monopoly power in Windows
to impede Intel's ability to compete with Microsoft in areas involving system software and influence of OEMs:
The DoJ made four major arguments based on McGeady's testimony:
Microsoft, in their response to McGeady's testimony, made the point that his testimony contained several pro-Microsoft threads, and that Intel practiced similar cross product subsidization, distributing free Intel Architecture Labs software funded by microprocessor revenues. They also claimed that Microsoft's influence over Intel and its microprocessors was unrelated to the downstream software segment.
Cross-examination of McGeady revealed conflicting interpretations of many Microsoft/Intel meetings, differing reasons for Intel's decisions, and the McGeady's anti-Microsoft bias:
McGeady's notes suggested that portions of his testimony could be considered embellishments or stories heard in other contexts, and he was frequently forced to suggest that he had a recollection of meetings and conversations superior to that of other Intel officials, as well as Netscape officers. Microsoft revealed Intel documents that painted McGeady as a "prima donna" who was criticized for his department's belligerence toward Microsoft.
Microsoft claimed that McGeady's actions suggested that he considered himself above Intel policy and an extra-corporate defender of truth and justice in the Internet world, and McGeady openly suggested that Intel's interference with Microsoft would aid the industry. McGeady admitted leaking confidential information to The New York Times
journalist John Markoff
, and met with Netscape's Jim Clark to keep Netscape from being complacent about the threat from Microsoft. Documents show McGeady envisioning entrapping Microsoft in an anti-trust suit, and later he indirectly volunteered to testify against Microsoft.
McGeady was called again to testify in the 2001 remedy phase of the Microsoft trial.
, pursuing research on emergent and self-organizing behavior in computer networks. During this time he was a keynote speaker at the first Harvard Conference on the Internet and Society. His speech from the event, "The Digital Reformation: Freedom, Risk, Responsibility" was reprinted in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. During 1997 and 1998, Mr. McGeady was a member of the National Research Council
Computer Science and Technology Board committee on Information Systems Trustworthiness, and is a co-author of its book on the subject.
who was arrested at Intel in early 2003. McGeady organized a defense fund and protested Hawash's 6-week incommunicado detention without charge. Hawash ultimately pled guilty to conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against U.S. forces in Afghanistan
, and received a reduced sentence in the so-called Portland Seven case in exchange for testifying against some of his co-conspirators.
United States v. Microsoft
United States v. Microsoft was a set of civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Section 1 and 2 on May 8, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor...
. His notes contained colorful quotes by Microsoft executives threatening to "cut off Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
's air supply" and Bill Gates' guess that "this anti-trust thing will blow over". Attorney David Boies
David Boies
David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...
said that McGeady's testimony showed him to be "an extremely conscientious, capable and honest witness," while Microsoft portrayed him as someone with an "axe to grind." McGeady left Intel in 2000, but later again gained notoriety for defending his former employee Mike Hawash
Mike Hawash
Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash is a Palestinian-born American engineer who was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence in 2003 for conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan...
after his arrest on federal terrorism charges. He is a member of the Reed College
Reed College
Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
Board of Trustees and the PNCA
Pacific Northwest College of Art
The Pacific Northwest College of Art is a private fine art and design college in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Established in 1910, the art school grants bachelor of fine arts degrees and master of fine arts degrees and has an enrollment of about 550 students...
Board of Governors, and lives in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
.
Early life
Steven McGeady was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a manager for Bethlehem SteelBethlehem Steel
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation , based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was once the second-largest steel producer in the United States, after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel. After a decline in the U.S...
. After high school in Michigan City, Indiana
Michigan City, Indiana
Michigan City's origins date to 1830, when the land for the city was first purchased by Isaac C. Elston. Elston Middle School, formerly Elston High School, located at 317 Detroit St., is named after the founder....
he briefly attended Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
. Then in 1976 he enrolled at Reed College
Reed College
Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. While attending Reed College from 1977-1980, he studied Physics and Philosophy, but did not graduate. The majority of his time was occupied at the school’s computer center where he and friends would experiment with a Digital Equipment Corp. computer donated by the founder of Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
, the first in the Northwest to run the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating system.
After college, McGeady was a software engineering manager at Ann Arbor Terminals and Oregon based Tektronix. Then in 1985 he joined Intel where in 1991 he co-founded the Intel Architecture Labs
Intel Architecture Labs
Intel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, was the personal computer system research and development arm of Intel Corporation during the 1990s...
in Hillsboro
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...
. In 1993, he was promoted to a vice president position at the company.
Intel
At the time of his departure in June 2000, McGeady was Vice President of Intel Corporation's New Business Group. During 15 years at Intel, he led a variety of software, marketing, and investment initiatives for Intel, including the i960 RISC microprocessor software development, Intel's digital video and multimedia research, Intel's first Internet development group, and a group focused on Internet-based healthcare delivery.McGeady was a co-founder of the Intel Architecture Labs
Intel Architecture Labs
Intel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, was the personal computer system research and development arm of Intel Corporation during the 1990s...
, a research and development group focused on advancing the personal-computer platform. McGeady ran the software, multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
, data security
Data security
Data security is the means of ensuring that data is kept safe from corruption and that access to it is suitably controlled. Thus data security helps to ensure privacy. It also helps in protecting personal data. Data security is part of the larger practice of Information security.- Disk Encryption...
, and Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
programs within this group for most of the 1990s. His group developed Intel's ProShare video-conferencing technology, the Indeo
Indeo
Indeo Video is a video codec developed by Intel in 1992. It was sold to Ligos Corporation in 2000. While its original version was related to Intel's DVI video stream format, a hardware-only codec for the compression of television-quality video onto compact disks, Indeo was distinguished by being...
video compression technology, and Intel's Display Control Interface and VXD
VxD
VxD is the device driver model used in Microsoft Windows/386, the 386 enhanced mode of Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, and to some extend also by the Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, and DR-DOS 7.02 multitasker...
graphics software, later licensed to Microsoft to form the core of DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
. His research group worked with the MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
, Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC
PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and co-development company in Palo Alto, California, with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology and hardware systems....
, and other groups, and developed early prototypes of Digital video recorders
DVR
The initialism "DVR", when used by itself, can refer to:* Digital video recorder* Discrete valuation ring* Distance-vector routing* Direct volume rendering* Derwent Valley Railway * Devco Railway...
, video broadcast servers, and other technologies.
As manager of the i960 software development tools team from 1986-1996, McGeady was an early developer and promoter of the Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
's GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
C compiler and tools. McGeady wrote the i960 target for gcc
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
and led the team that developed a suite of tools including a globally optimizing, trace-driven optimizer for gcc and the first gdb port to a remote, stand-alone system. He hired Cygnus Support
Cygnus Solutions
Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software...
to integrate those changes into the mainline GNU tools, and to improve the tools' ability to deal with many object file formats.
McGeady was Vice-President of Intel's Multimedia, Communications, and Internet activities from 1990 through 1996, where he led the development of the first desktop video-compression software for the PC, Intel's early implementations of multimedia network broadcast protocols, the first products to combine television and web pages, online virtual communities, the Java language, and data security infrastructure.
As a software engineer and developer, McGeady was often a minority voice at hardware-dominated Intel. In 1996 he was asked by then-CEO Andy Grove to take a job as Grove's assistant, and is the only known person to turn the job down. Grove later said that he and Intel would have grasped the importance of the Internet to the company more quickly had McGeady taken the job. McGeady had a less positive relationship with succeeding CEO Craig Barrett, reportedly telling Barrett to "pound sand" when Barrett instructed him not to testify in the Microsoft case.
Microsoft trials
In 1998, McGeady was a witness for the US Department of Justice in the U.S. vs. Microsoft anti-trust case, where he testified about MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's attempts to control Intel's software efforts as well as their behavior toward Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
and Sun's Javasoft. He was the only executive from the PC industry to testify for the government. McGeady testified that Microsoft opposed Intel's 1995 work on a new technology called Native Signal Processing, which would have used instructions from Intel's chips, rather than software code from Microsoft, to run multimedia and communications programs more quickly.
McGeady testified for the government and against Microsoft despite pressure from inside Intel. Intel's then-COO Craig Barrett instructed McGeady not to cooperate with Department of Justice attorneys, but "He
McGeady also claimed in his testimony that Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Vice-President Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz is CEO of VMware Corporation , and a past senior executive at Microsoft.Born and raised in Rhodesia , his family later moved to South Africa where he was schooled at Highbury Preparatory School and Hilton College. He received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Natal,...
had described, in a meeting at Intel, Microsoft's plan to "embrace, extend,
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
standard until it would be incompatible with the Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
browser. While this term had some currency before his 1998 testimony, this was its first prominent public exposure. Documents presented by the government showed Microsoft was concerned about McGeady: "Steve McGeady remains an issue for us. He is a champion of Java, and a believer that the day of bloatware is over," wrote Microsoft VP Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz is CEO of VMware Corporation , and a past senior executive at Microsoft.Born and raised in Rhodesia , his family later moved to South Africa where he was schooled at Highbury Preparatory School and Hilton College. He received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Natal,...
in an email to Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
. He has more IQ than most
In November 1998, McGeady testified that Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
leveraged its monopoly power in Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
to impede Intel's ability to compete with Microsoft in areas involving system software and influence of OEMs:
- McGeady testified that Microsoft feared competition from Intel's software development: At an August 2, 1995 meeting Bill Gates allegedly threatened to terminate Windows support for Intel's new microprocessors unless they were able to "get alignment" between Intel and MS on Intel's Internet and communications software programs, and Gates allegedly told Andy Grove to shut down the Intel Architecture LabsIntel Architecture LabsIntel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, was the personal computer system research and development arm of Intel Corporation during the 1990s...
, the organization driving Intel's Internet program.
- McGeady testified that Microsoft was upset that Intel "shifting the software boundary" without Microsoft's permission: IALIntel Architecture LabsIntel Architecture Labs, also known as IAL, was the personal computer system research and development arm of Intel Corporation during the 1990s...
's development of Native Signal Processing (NSP) program caused this concern. NSP was a layer of software that interfaced with both the Windows OS and the hardware in order to support realtime audio, realtime video, and 3D graphics. According to McGeady, NSP threatened Microsoft because it was software at operating system level, while Microsoft believed they "owned software to the metal," (i.e., to the hardware level). (10AM17, 12PM13) Ultimately, Andy Grove admitted that Intel "caved" by retracting NSP.
- Microsoft was concerned about IAL: Gates allegedly said regarding Intel Architecture Labs: "Having 700 software engineers running around in the industry is an okay thing as long as Microsoft knows what they’re doing first." According to McGeady, they did not want to relinquish control over any application interfaces to Intel. To take advantage of multimedia hardware, Intel was writing device drivers that allowed application developers direct control of (e.g.) graphics and video devices. To prevent this Microsoft threatened to continue bad-mouthing IAL’s software and to withhold support for Intel’s MMX microprocessor.
- McGeady testified that Microsoft used its monopoly power in Windows to restrict support for Netscape and Java, and to their plans to compete with Netscape through predatory pricingPredatory pricingIn business and economics, predatory pricing is the practice of selling a product or service at a very low price, intending to drive competitors out of the market, or create barriers to entry for potential new competitors. If competitors or potential competitors cannot sustain equal or lower prices...
, through the leveraging of their Windows OS monopoly, and through the creation of incompatible HTML standards:- Netscape: McGeady testified that Microsoft generally discouraged Intel from working with Netscape, and that Gates allegedly urged Groves to push Intel’s internal information technology group away from Netscape's server toward Microsoft's IISInternet Information ServicesInternet Information Services – formerly called Internet Information Server – is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the most used web server after Apache HTTP Server. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS,...
, and stressed that it was "very important" that Intel "NOT ever publicly say they are standardizing on Netscape browsers." McGeady testified to Microsoft's three prong strategy to defeat Netscape: they allegedly stated that they would "cut off Netscape’s air supply" by giving away Internet Explorer for free, preventing Netscape from deriving any revenue from its browser; that Microsoft asserted they would "fight with the OS and the apps arm", meaning they would create dependencies between Windows and the browser that would create advantages for their browser over Netscape's; and MS's professed strategy of "embrace, extend, extinguish", planning to "extend" the HTML standard to the point where it would be incompatible with the Netscape browser. - Java: McGeady testified that Microsoft made it clear to that Intel support for Java would be a "show stopper" in Intel's relationship with Microsoft, threatening to terminate cooperation that Intel required for new microprocessors. Microsoft allegedly proposed that Intel help them prevent the Java component model from becoming a de facto standard by developing a Java system incompatible with Sun's, defeating Java’s "write once, run anywhere" capabilities, and tying Java to Windows. Microsoft would distribute this Java Virtual Machine as part of Internet Explorer, a variant of MS’s "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy. When Microsoft learned that McGeady's group at Intel had implemented its own Java VM and multimedia class libraries that ran very fast on the Intel architecture, Microsoft became very upset that Intel was working in Java. McGeady testified that Microsoft pressed Intel to stop this work.
- Netscape: McGeady testified that Microsoft generally discouraged Intel from working with Netscape, and that Gates allegedly urged Groves to push Intel’s internal information technology group away from Netscape's server toward Microsoft's IIS
The DoJ made four major arguments based on McGeady's testimony:
- Intel and its software development effort were hampered by Microsoft's bully tactics;
- Microsoft used Intel against Netscape in the "Browser Wars";
- McGeady was an expert witness on software standards, innovation and competition; and
- McGeady felt Microsoft hampered Java development.
Microsoft, in their response to McGeady's testimony, made the point that his testimony contained several pro-Microsoft threads, and that Intel practiced similar cross product subsidization, distributing free Intel Architecture Labs software funded by microprocessor revenues. They also claimed that Microsoft's influence over Intel and its microprocessors was unrelated to the downstream software segment.
Cross-examination of McGeady revealed conflicting interpretations of many Microsoft/Intel meetings, differing reasons for Intel's decisions, and the McGeady's anti-Microsoft bias:
- Microsoft defended its attempts to coordinate strategy with Intel and tried to dispel the bully image;
- Microsoft presented reasons for the discontinuation of Intel's Native Signal Processing initiative;
- Microsoft highlighted Intel practices that resemble Microsoft's alleged anti-competitive behavior;
- Microsoft defended its Java program; and
- Microsoft aggressively attacked McGeady to discredit him as a witness.
McGeady's notes suggested that portions of his testimony could be considered embellishments or stories heard in other contexts, and he was frequently forced to suggest that he had a recollection of meetings and conversations superior to that of other Intel officials, as well as Netscape officers. Microsoft revealed Intel documents that painted McGeady as a "prima donna" who was criticized for his department's belligerence toward Microsoft.
Microsoft claimed that McGeady's actions suggested that he considered himself above Intel policy and an extra-corporate defender of truth and justice in the Internet world, and McGeady openly suggested that Intel's interference with Microsoft would aid the industry. McGeady admitted leaking confidential information to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
journalist John Markoff
John Markoff
John Markoff is a journalist best known for his work at The New York Times, and a book and series of articles about the 1990s pursuit and capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick.- Biography :...
, and met with Netscape's Jim Clark to keep Netscape from being complacent about the threat from Microsoft. Documents show McGeady envisioning entrapping Microsoft in an anti-trust suit, and later he indirectly volunteered to testify against Microsoft.
McGeady was called again to testify in the 2001 remedy phase of the Microsoft trial.
Other activities
During 1996/97, McGeady was a visiting researcher at the MIT Media LabMIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
, pursuing research on emergent and self-organizing behavior in computer networks. During this time he was a keynote speaker at the first Harvard Conference on the Internet and Society. His speech from the event, "The Digital Reformation: Freedom, Risk, Responsibility" was reprinted in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology. During 1997 and 1998, Mr. McGeady was a member of the National Research Council
United States National Research Council
The National Research Council of the USA is the working arm of the United States National Academies, carrying out most of the studies done in their names.The National Academies include:* National Academy of Sciences...
Computer Science and Technology Board committee on Information Systems Trustworthiness, and is a co-author of its book on the subject.
Mike Hawash case
McGeady entered the news again in 2003 because of his defense of his former Intel employee Mike HawashMike Hawash
Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash is a Palestinian-born American engineer who was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison sentence in 2003 for conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan...
who was arrested at Intel in early 2003. McGeady organized a defense fund and protested Hawash's 6-week incommunicado detention without charge. Hawash ultimately pled guilty to conspiring to aid the Taliban in fighting against U.S. forces in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, and received a reduced sentence in the so-called Portland Seven case in exchange for testifying against some of his co-conspirators.