18 months? Sheesh, it's not even a year since the consent decree action was filed. How, perchance, could the Sherman case have been in preparation for 18 months?
As for the pattern of behavior, well, you have the conveniently timed Caldera and Sun suits going on, with Brad Chase's "urban legend" under examination and all that.
Since you mention IBM, Alan, I have to bring up Bill's little revisionist history act on that front.
Gates sees antitrust victory news.com
He would, acting as his own attorney and everything.
Addressing a conference on the Internet and the Media, Gates said that previous antitrust cases, particularly against International Business Machines, provided Microsoft with strong legal ammunition. "They [IBM] won all of those law suits. Some of those precedents are fantastic for us because they say that even a successful company can be innovative," Gates said.
I guess I should ask Reggie about all these stunning precedents supplied by IBM. The story about IBM winning all their suits is somewhat at variance with my understanding. There was this big one with CDC where they gave away their service bureau business in a consent decree, and some older ones too. It's all out of context, though. Bill wouldn't lie to us, would he?
Cheers, Dan. |
