US district judge Thomas Penfield Jackson set an 11 A.M.EDT (1500 GMT) status hearing for Wednesday to consider whether to compel Microsoft to provide key documents and make available top executives including chairman and chief executive officer Bill Gates for deposition by government lawyers.

Microsoft has offered the government eight hours with Gates and has agreed to make available company president Steve Ballmer and up to seven other top executives, company spokesman Jim Cullinan said on Monday.

But last week the US justice department asked Jackson to compel Microsoft to make available 17 executives, including two days with Gates, and to order Microsoft to turn over the source code for its Windows 95 and Windows 98 computer operating systems, raising the prospect that the trialcould be delayed.

"We believe these last-minute demands by the DOJ are an effort to distract Microsoft from preparing its defence for trial," Cullinan said. "If that's the case it's very disappointing."

In May, the federal government and 20 states filed a broad antitrust suit against Microsoft, accusing the company of illegally maintaining its monopoly in personal computer operating systems and using that position to gain monopolies in other business areas.

Since then, Microsoft lawyers have completed most of their pretrial depositions with key executives of rival companies, including Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems Inc and James Barksdale and Marc Andreessen of Netscape Communications Corp.

Last month Microsoft complained in court about rival Novell Inc's failure to cooperate, but the two sides since have settled their differences, Cullinan said.

"We are getting painted as unreasonable and blocking this case when we think just the opposite is true," Cullinan said. "We have always said and neverwavered that we are getting ready for trial September 8."

Last week Microsoft, in its first formal, legal response to the landmark case, denied all charges brought against it and asked Jackson to dismiss the state and federal complaints.