The alleged pressure could be used to bolster the government's antitrust case against Microsoft in which the government alleges a pattern of anti-competitive behavior by the software giant. That case goes to court on Sept. 23.

The notion that Microsoft would exert this kind of pressure on one of its closest partners -- the other half of the "Wintel" powerhouse -- could be particularly damaging to its defense.

Intel documents detailing the conversations have been subpoenaed by government lawyers in the antitrust case, and Intel executives have given depositions on the matter, The New York Times reported.

The Justice Department and states contend that Microsoft has demonstrated a pattern of illegal business practices by using its Windows operating system monopoly to squelch competition for Internet browsing software. Intel's account of the meeting could lend credence to the arguments that Microsoft bullied Netscape to divide the browser market to avoid competing.

For the New York Times story, a Microsoft representative neither expressly denied nor confirmed the allegations. The Justice Department did not comment and neither did Intel, the paper reported.

It is unknown how closely Intel is cooperating with the government it its newest investigations into Microsoft's activities. The government is also pursuing claims against Intel for alleged antitrust violations.

During the August 1995 meeting between Gates and Grove, Gates reportedly called for Intel to stop development of native signal processing software for multimedia applications. Microsoft executives were concerned about Intel's interest in including Internet features, and in particular, support for Java, which can run on any operating system. That support was seen by Microsoft as a threat to the continued dominance of Wintel, and a boon to Sun Microsystems' Java.

Meanwhile, a book set for publication by Random House on Sept. 8 -- ironically, the original date the Microsoft-Justice Department antitrust trial originally was scheduled to begin -- likely will further sully Microsoft's reputation.

According to industry journalist Wendy Goldman Rohm, author of "The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against Bill Gates," Microsoft executives plotted to ensure that Windows 3.1 fail if it detected DR-DOS, which was made by Digital Research. They discussed blaming Digital for the crashes, Goldman Rohm said.

"Maybe there are several very sophisticated checks so competitors get put on a treadmill," Microsoft Vice President David Cole wrote in 1991 to Senior Vice President Brad Silverberg and other officials, according to a memo cited in Rohm's book.

Goldman Rohm also cited a memo from Silverberg apparently suggesting that Microsoft create a bond between its own version of DOS, MS-DOS, and Windows that would not exist with competing versions of DOS.

"The most sensible thing from the development standpoint is to continue to build dependencies on MS-DOS into Windows," Silverberg wrote in a February 1992 memo.

"When they're asked specifically about deliberately sabotaging [competitors' software] through sneaky code, they say they never engaged in anything but creating great products," Goldman Rohm said. "These memos show what they were really up to."

Microsoft dismissed the idea that it considered "sabotaging" DR-DOS.

"Microsoft's goal was to reduce support costs by informing consumers when they were running Windows 3.1 on a version of DOS that hadn't been tested," said company spokesman Mark Murray.

"Every one of these allegations was investigated fully by the Federal Trade Commission and the [Department of Justice] in the early 1990s and were found to be groundless," Murray said.

Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., is at http://www.microsoft.com. Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., is at http://www.intel.com. The U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, is at http://www.usdoj.gov.

Bob Trott is a senior editor for InfoWorld. Jana Sanchez-Klein is London bureau chief for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.