Days before Microsoft unveiled its updated Office 98 for the Macintosh at the MacWorld trade show in August, 1997, Microsoft's Ben Waldman, who led development of the program, told Business Week, "We've been working with Apple like never before. I'm surprised at how many levels."

Ain't that the truth. According to the deposition of Apple Computer Senior Vice-President Avadis Tevanian released on Nov. 2 by the Justice Dept., Microsoft wasn't just talking about "building great applications for the Mac platform," as Waldman gushed. Tevanian told trustbusters that Microsoft threatened to kill the Office upgrade outright in order to strong-arm Apple into resolving a patent infringement issue and to get the company to drop Netscape's Navigator as its default browser in favor of Internet Explorer 3.0. "Although Microsoft had made a substantial investment getting Office 98 for Macintosh ready for market, it was willing to risk an outright loss of that entire investment to force Apple to terms," Tevanian wrote in the 45-page testimony.

Tevanian's testimony puts a very different cast on the announcements during that show, when Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs was praised for forging a pragmatic detente with Microsoft. Rather than a coup, it's clear from Tevanian's testimony that Jobs felt he had no choice. Tevanian also gave detailed testimony on Microsoft's efforts to force Apple out of the multimedia playback market, in exchange for free run of the far smaller multimedia authoring market. Tevanian accuses Microsoft of tweaking its software so that Apple's QuickTime code would not work properly with Windows machines.

All told, despite expectations that Apple would not be an especially friendly witness for the Justice Dept., Tevanian was outspoken in his criticism of Microsoft. "As our experience with QuickTime shows, Microsoft will seriously disparage and disable competing application programs through its control of the operating system. Because Microsoft can use its monopoly power in this way, consumers are deprived of a fair opportunity to judge competing products on their merits." That kind of talk could bring relations between Microsoft and Apple to another new level -- one more time.

By Peter Burrows in San Mateo, Calif.