CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
Poole heads strategic planning for Microsoft's Windows group and handles the company's relationships with Internet content providers such as Disney and Warner Bros. Previously he was president of eShop Inc., one of the early Internet shopping software and services companies, which Microsoft purchased in 1996.

EXPECTED TO TESTIFY:
He'll talk about the agreements that Microsoft made with content providers in 1997. It gave dozens of them featured positions on the so-called Active Channel Bar on Windows 98 in exchange for promoting the Internet Explorer browser and using Microsoft's software tools. Microsoft suspended the promotional requirements last May. And, it turns out, the Active Channel Bar never produced much traffic to the partners' Web sites. In September, the service was discontinued. Poole's point will be that the deals didn't prevent those companies from also working with Netscape -- and that they were insignificant as a vehicle for distributing browser software.