Microsoft's star witness: Bill Gates

With his company's ability to further monopolize the personal computer market

on the line, Bill Gates took the witness stand in the four-year antitrust

battle. Gates wasted little time to blast the various proposals made by the nine

states opposing the antitrust settlement. If they succeed, Gates told Federal

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, they would cripple Microsoft.

Gates never apologized for any of Microsoft's business practices, which the

courts have found to be illegal and unfair. Instead, Gates bluntly warned

Kollar-Kotelly that if she goes along with the states proposal for a stripped

down version of Windows, or having to disclose technical details, Microsoft

would have to lay off up to 15,000 people and might pull Windows from the

market. The impact in the company, industry and economy would be severe.

Windows, Gates said, is at the epicenter of innovation in the personal

computer industry. By reducing Windows to some undefined 'core operating system,

the states would turn back the clock on Windows development 10 years and

effectively freeze it there. "The health of the personal computer

'ecosystem depends in substantial part upon the continued health of and

improvements to Windows. The practical effect would be to cripple Microsoft as a

technology company. The states would undermine all elements of Microsoft's

success, causing great damage to Microsoft, other companies that build upon

Microsoft's products, and the businesses and consumers that use PC

software."

Contrary to his unflattering, evasive and combative demeanor in the 1998

video-taped deposition used in the initial antitrust trial, Gates this time

remained calm and composed, smiling throughout most of the testimony. Gates

started his testimony with a computer-generated slideshow demonstrating that

Windows would not function properly if Microsoft were ordered to produce a

version without Internet Explorer, as the states have asked. "If you remove

this block of code, other functions are degraded in the most extreme way. They

no longer work."

Witnesses for the States have pointed out that it would be relatively simple

for Microsoft to take the browser out of the OS code with little or no impact on

the performance of applications.

Gates argued that multiple variations of Windows would take too long to test

and software developers would have to spend much of their time reconciling all

the different operating systems rather than writing new software. Consumers also

would have a hard time learning how to use the different versions.

During cross examination, states' lawyer Steve Kuney challenged Gates'

assertion that Microsoft does all it can to disclose technical information so

software developers can write programs that work well with Microsoft products.

Kuney cited an internal Microsoft memo in which Gates instructed his employees

to stop trying to make sure Microsoft Office documents would work with rival Web

browsers. ''We have to stop putting any effort into this,'' Gates said in the

December 1998 e-mail. ''Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a

case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows.''

Gates said he believed it was inefficient for engineers to spend their time

on an effort that was ''not making any progress.'' Kuney tried to convince

Kollar-Kotelly that Gates had twisted the meaning of the States' proposed

sanctions in order to make them look extreme. For example, Gates has written

that the requested requirement that Microsoft tell competitors about new Windows

features could chill cooperation between Microsoft employees. "If an

application engineer comes up with a new feature for Windows, the minute it came

into his brain, the guy's in criminal contempt," Gates wrote.

Kuney also said that Gates was wrong when saying that the disclosure

requirement would allow competitors to clone the entire Windows operating

system. But gates countered that disclosure of more of its computer code would

give competitors free reign over Microsoft's innovations and no incentive to

improve its offerings. "Within a few years, as competing platforms raced

ahead by adding new capabilities, Windows would become obsolete. In short, the

practical effect of the states' proposals would be to cripple Microsoft as a

technology company."

The nine states opposing the antitrust settlement are California,

Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah, West

Virginia, plus the District of Columbia.