As Trial Opens, U.S. Questions What Gates Knew nytimes.com
And when he knew it, as they used to say.
Gates, in a sworn deposition in August, denied knowing that executives of his company had tried to make an illegal deal with rival Netscape Communications Corp. in 1995.
"My only knowledge of that is that there was an article in The Wall Street Journal very recently that said something along those lines -- otherwise no," Gates said in a clip of the videotaped deposition shown to the packed courtroom.
But a government lawyer, David Boies, produced a Microsoft internal memorandum from Gates, in which he wrote May 31 before that meeting: "I think there is a very powerful deal of some kind we can do with Netscape. I would really like to see something like this happen."
That one's a little ambiguous. But then there's this:
The Justice Department says that Microsoft essentially offered Netscape a deal, in an illegal effort to divide the market for the browser software that allows computer users to access the Internet. Microsoft agreed not to develop a rival browser for operating systems aside from Windows, if Netscape agreed to stay out of the Windows market.
Netscape refused, and its co-founder, Marc Andreessen, afterward compared the meeting to "a visit by Don Corleone; I expected to find a bloody computer monitor in my bed the next day."
Boies showed another video clip from Gates's deposition, taken last summer, in which Gates denied he ever seriously considered investing in Netscape. Gates said, "somebody [at Microsoft] asked if it made sense investing in Netscape,"' and he disagreed.
Then Boies introduced a memorandum from Gates, before the June 1995 meeting, in which Gates wrote: "We could even give them money as part of the deal, buy a piece of them or something."
Or something. Bill's said some strange things in his time, how could anyone expect him to keep it all straight?
Cheers, Dan. |
