As the landmark antitrust trial entered its third day on Wednesday, Microsoft tried to show that Netscape may have set part of the agenda for a June 1995 meeting, where the government alleges that the software giant proposed dividing browser sales.

Government lawyers and Netscape have said Microsoft offered to take a position in Netscape stock as part of that meeting.

But Microsoft attorney John Warden showed the court a December 1994 memo from Jim Clark, then Netscape's chief executive officer, that asked Microsoft to come to Netscape's financial rescue.

U.S. law forbids competitors from allocating market share and an antitrust expert said it would make little difference whether Netscape had sought an investment earlier.

"The real issue is not, who asked who first," said Howard Morse, a former Federal TradeCommission official now with Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington.

"The issue is: Was it an invitation to a naked market division, or was it an invitation to engage in an arguably legitimate joint venture?" said Morse.

Clark, a co-founder of Netscape who had invested $5 million of his own money by the end of 1994, wrote two senior Microsoft officials: "Depending on the interest level, you might take an equity position in Netscape with the ability to expand the position later."

Warden repeatedly pressed Netscape's current chief executive officer, Jim Barksdale, if he had known about the memo and whether Clark's proposal formed a basis for discussion at the June meeting six months later.

Barksdale replied that the memo was written a week before he arrived to take over the company. "By the time I got there it was moot," Barksdale said, adding that Clark "never told me about it, never told the board about it."

Netscape's lawyers said later the company did not even have a copy of the memo.

David Boies,who is representing the justice department, called the cross examination another attempt by Microsoft to change the subject. "Microsoft does not like it, but the subject is the 1995 market division meetings," Boies told reporters outside the court.

In court, Warden asked Barksdale if Microsoft executive DanRosen had said at the June 1995 meeting that the two companies should divide the market for Web browsers.

"I never said he said that," replied Barksdale. Warden pursued the point, finally asking: "So there was no explicit proposal?"

Shot back Barksdale: "It was as explicit as you can get. He did not say the words, `divide the market.'"

Instead, Barksdale said, Microsoft executives had made it clear Microsoft would market browsers for computers running Windows 95 and Netscape would market them for other systems.

Netscape, he said, rejected that offer.

The U.S. justice department and 20 states filed suit in May alleging that Microsoft had used a monopoly in personal computer operating software tothwart rivals and to seek control of the market for Internet browsers.

The trial before District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is expected to last 6-8 weeks.

Earlier on Wednesday, Jackson ordered Microsoft to produce more financial data to help the government make its case.

The company was given two further days to provide the records although the government was ordered to pay all costs.

Microsoft's stock rose $6.19 on Wednesday to close at $106.44 as Wall Street cheered better than expected earnings reported by the company late Tuesday.