Microsoft chief Bill Gates was forced to contradict some of his written
testimony when pressed by layers for the nine states seeking tough sanctions to
prevent his company from continuing its anti-competitive business practices.
In the second day on the witness stand, the States tried to show that Gates
has been trying to greatly and deliberately exaggerate the impact of the
sanctions being proposed by the states. In one example, Gates said that a
provision that would bar Microsoft from retaliating against computer companies
that also want to support Linux or other operating systems would ''ban Microsoft
from competing in any product category.''
Steve Kuney, the lawyer for the states confronted Gates with an instance in
which he called the CEO of Apple Computer after Apple had announced support for
the Netscape Navigator browser. Gates asked ''how should we announce the
cancellation of' Microsoft's translation of the Office business suite for
Apple's Macintosh computers?" Gates agreed, that under the states' proposal
it would have been illegal for him to make such as threat against Apple.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly prevented Kuney from showing an internal
Microsoft e-mail to Gates that reportedly suggest taking actions against Intel
for its support of Linux. Gates also claimed that the states request for
disclosure of certain technical information would prevent the company from
releasing patches to fix security and other software glitches in a timely
fashion since the states proposal requires a 60-day notification period. Gates
said that while the states' legal language allows Microsoft to make such changes
"for good cause," that language was too vague and would open nearly
every Windows design change to second guessing by competitors.
Gates also admitted that Sun's Java and Netscape's Navigator browser once
posed a threat to the Windows operating system. The admission is important
because the courts have found that Microsoft acted illegally to prevent those
solutions from gaining widespread popularity. Microsoft, however, has argued
that Navigator and Java never posed a serious threat to Windows and thus it
would be improper to punish Microsoft for their failure.
Gates defended Microsoft's right to fight off competition. "It's part of
my job to always look out at a direction of something that could create
competition and be as scared as I can be in addressing that."