Gates may testify in Microsoft court hearings

Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON: Microsoft Corp. chairman and co-founder Bill Gates and other top executives

at the company may testify in upcoming court hearings in an effort to convince a federal

judge to reject any stricter sanctions against the software giant, the company said on

Sunday.

Microsoft named Gates, along with chief executive Steve Ballmer and 10 other company

officials as possible witnesses for the hearings on sanctions, which are scheduled to

start March 11.

Gates and the other officials will make the case before US District Judge Colleen

Kollar-Kotelly that the judge should not impose any sanctions beyond those that the

company agreed to in November in a settlement deal with the Justice Department and nine of

the state attorneys general in the case.

In particular, they will be trying to fend off more severe remedies that have been

proposed by nine other states, which have refused to sign on to the settlement and are

continuing to press the case in court. Gates will tell the judge that the stricter

sanctions would hobble collaboration in the computer industry and thus be bad for the

business and consumers, Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said on Sunday.

Gates did not testify in person during the trial, and some legal analysts have said

that decision damaged Microsoft's defense. Instead, the Justice Department showed the

trial judge parts of Gates videotaped deposition, in which he appeared evasive.

Microsoft exchanged witness lists with the nine dissenting state attorneys general on

Friday night, according to Desler. In its list, Microsoft also included witnesses from a

variety of industries. Among them are computer manufacturer Compaq, chip maker Advanced

Micro Devices Inc. and retailer Best Buy Inc., as well as executives from the

telecommunications and cable television industries.

An appeals court in June dismissed parts of the case, but upheld the original trial

court's ruling that the company violated antitrust law by illegally maintaining its

monopoly in personal computer operating systems.

The Justice Department and nine states in the case have signed on to a settlement that

would, among other things, give computer makers more freedom to feature rival software.

The proposed settlement is designed, among other things, to give computer manufacturers

more freedom to decide what software to put on the machines they sell.

But the dissenting states are pressing the judge to impose stronger remedies, including

a provision that would force the company to sell a stripped-down version of its Windows

operating system. Also on Microsoft's witness list is Oracle Corp. executive Ken Glueck,

who Microsoft contends helped write the tougher antitrust sanctions being sought by the

dissenting state attorneys general.

In a federal court filing on Friday, Microsoft said Glueck was one of the "prime

movers" behind the remedies being sought as an alternative to a settlement of the

government's antitrust case against the world's largest software company.

(C) Reuters Limited.