Gerald, long time no post! Another Italian holiday? Washed out to sea by El Nino?
I wonder about Microsoft and lobbyists. My reading is they've gotten their way plenty often in the past, and Slade Gorton is no slouch in protecting the state's interests. And, of course, my old line was always that the antitrust division would get its budget zeroed before they could hang anything on Bill & Co.
Now, I don't know. It's not like I'm unbiased, but everything they do seems so ham-fisted and clumsy. The same lines over and over again, with the same ample condescension for the mere mortal Senators as for the rest of us. Meanwhile, I can even find Libertarians dubious about Bill, like the Cato guy. I don't go searching for pro-Microsoft stuff in the trades, but I don't avoid it either, and I haven't seen much. I'm sure the WSJ will reliably weigh in for MSFT, otherwise support seems to be getting thinner all the time.
My advice to MSFT would be to follow the Intel lead, get some good antitrust lawyers and let them do their job, lay off the PR front for a while. Bill seems determined to represent himself legally, and we know the old saw about that one. Plus, his celebrity makes it sure that everything he says will be a story, otherwise everybody would probably get bored by the tedium and complexity of the whole thing. Like at the last Jackson hearing.
Cheers, Dan. |
