A Microsoft Rebuttal but Nothing to Rebut nytimes.com
On a lighter note, the second story of the day from the NYT. The first part is on an odd PR preemptive strike. The second part is more amusing. Quote without comment, for once.
Cheers, Dan.
In August 1997, Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer its default browser as part of a deal in which Microsoft agreed to produce its Office suite for the Macintosh, invested $150 million in Apple and settled several patent disputes. Microsoft has portrayed the patent disputes as the important issue in the deal. To reinforce that point this afternoon, Edelman played a tape showing Steven P. Jobs, Apple's co-founder and acting chief executive, announcing the Microsoft deal at a 1997 Mac World convention.
But that videotape did not appear to have the desired effect.
Jobs did point out that important patent cross-licensing agreements had been part of the deal, but the tape showed that when he mentioned Apple's patent disputes with Microsoft, the crowd broke into raucous laughter. Apple partisans have long asserted that Microsoft stole the basic look and feel of Windows from Apple's operating system, Mac OS.
And the tape showed that Jobs's announcement that Internet Explorer would become the default browser on Macintosh computers brought a sustained chorus of boos and catcalls from the audience.
The videotape was only about fives minutes long, but through it all, everyone in the courtroom -- including Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson -- was, like the Mac World crowd, laughing loudly. |
